nearly twelve o'clock
`` Now , dearest , you must take me out to the carriage , '' she said , rising and drawing her shawl around her . He gave her his arm and led her out to the carriage , which the frightened negro coachman had driven quite to the opposite side of the road from the terrible haunted house . `` Now go on to the Misses Cranes ' , '' she said , after she had taken leave of her victim and settled herself in her seat . It was nearly twelve o'clock when she entered her boarding-house ; but she told her waiting landladies that she had spent the day and half the night with the sick child , and they were satisfied . Thither , full fraught with mischievous revenge , Accursed and in a cursed hour , she hies . -- MILTON . On that Wednesday morning the fine steamer `` Pocahontas '' lay at her wharf receiving freight and passengers for Washington and Alexandria .