half past eight
`` As soon as Dilly makes up her mind . '' All that evening , Eli Pike sat on the steps , where he could hear the talk in the sitting-room without losing the whippoorwill 's song from the Joyce orchard , and Dilly longed to slip out and sit quietly beside him . He would know . But she could only be civil and grateful , and when half past eight came , take her lamp and go up to bed . Jethro was given the best chamber , because he had succeeded and came from Chicago ; but Dilly had a little room that looked straight out across the treetops down to her own home . At first , after closing the door behind her , she felt only the great blessedness of being alone . She put out the light and threw herself , as she was , face downwards on the bed .