three o'clock
But you were not to suppose that all this elaborate rusticity would be any excuse for the absence of attendants in livery , and a chef who boasted the cordon bleu , and a dinner-table resplendent with crystal and silver and orchids and ferns . After all , though the host called it a `` small '' place , he had invited twenty guests , and he had a hunter in his stables for each one of them . But the most wonderful thing about `` The Roost '' was the fact that , at a touch of a button , all the walls of the lower rooms vanished into the second story , and there was one huge , log-lighted room , with violins tuning up and calling to one 's feet . They set a fast pace here -- the dancing lasted until three o'clock , and at dawn again they were dressed and mounted , and following the pink-coated grooms and the hounds across the frost-covered fields . Montague was half prepared for a tame fox , but this was spared him . There was a real game , it seemed ; and soon the pack gave tongue , and away went the hunt . It was the wildest ride that Montague ever had taken -- over ditches and streams and innumerable rail-fences , and through thick coverts and densely populated barnyards ; but he was in at the death , and Alice was only a few yards behind , to the immense delight of the company .