four o'clock
It was all delightful -- the sights and the sounds , and the fresh mountain wind that blew them about on the top so that long afterward Milly used to look back to that walk on Brownholme when she was seven years old as one of the merriest times she ever spent . Dinner was very welcome after all this scrambling ; and after dinner came a quiet time in the garden , when father read aloud to mother and Aunt Emma , and the children kept still and listened to as much as they could understand , at least until they went to sleep , which they both did lying on a rug at Aunt Emma 's feet . Milly could n't understand how this had happened at all , when she found herself waking up and rubbing her eyes , but I think it was natural enough after their long walk in the sun and wind . At four o'clock nurse came for them , and when they had been put into clean frocks and pinafores , she took them up to the farm . Milly and Olly felt that this was a very solemn occasion , and they walked up to the farmhouse door hand-in-hand , feeling as shy as if they had never been there before . But at the door were Becky and Tiza waiting for them , as smart as new pins , with shining hair , and red ribbons under their little white collars ; and the children no sooner caught sight of one another than all their shyness flew away , and they began to chatter as usual . In the farmhouse kitchen were Bessie and Charlie , and such a comfortable tea spread out on a long table , covered with a red and black woollen table-cloth instead of a white one .