about half past eight in the evening
What was it , indeed , that Josephine Harris had dimly discovered ? Return we now to the somewhat too-long neglected Miss Emily Owen and the other inmates and intimates of Judge Owen 's pleasant house near the Harlem River . Some days had elapsed after the conversation between Emily and Aunt Martha , bringing the time to the first of July and the commencement of that fire-cracker abomination that was to culminate on the Fourth in a general distraction . Some days had elapsed -- as has already been noted ; and judging by the person who sat nearest to Miss Emily Owen in the faintly-lighted parlor , at about half past eight in the evening , the Judge 's praises of Col. Bancker and animadversions of Frank Wallace had not been without their effect on the young girl . Both the rival suitors were present , and so was Aunt Martha ; but Frank Wallace made a somewhat dim and undefined picture as he sat near one of the front windows , apparently observing the boys deep in the mysteries of fire-crackers and torpedoes ; while the Colonel was in altogether a better light as he sat near Emily and nearly under the half-lighted chandelier . Emily was indulging in the peculiarly American vice of rolling backward and forward in a rocking-chair ; the Colonel had one leg over the other and was drumming with the opened blade of his penknife on the cover of the book he held in his hand ; and Aunt Martha was ruining what eyes she had left , by some kind of crochet-work in cotton that may possibly have been a `` tidy . '' Frank and the Colonel had come in very nearly together , yet _ not _ together , about half an hour before .