about nine o'clock
She saw it now in a kindlier aspect . `` I think , '' she said at last , as she still knelt before the fire , looking deep into the coals , absorbed , abstracted , `` I think that I am going to be very happy here . '' On a certain Monday morning , about a month later , Curtis Jadwin descended from his office in the Rookery Building , and turning southward , took his way toward the brokerage and commission office of Gretry , Converse and Co. , on the ground floor of the Board of Trade Building , only a few steps away . It was about nine o'clock ; the weather was mild , the sun shone . La Salle Street swarmed with the multitudinous life that seethed about the doors of the innumerable offices of brokers and commission men of the neighbourhood . To the right , in the peristyle of the Illinois Trust Building , groups of clerks , of messengers , of brokers , of clients , and of depositors formed and broke incessantly . To the left , where the facade of the Board of Trade blocked the street , the activity was astonishing , and in and out of the swing doors of its entrance streamed an incessant tide of coming and going .