three o'clock
One March day she came at the appointed hour , soon after our noon dinner . The usual clear winter sky was clouded , and a wind blew the snow from the trees where it had lain quietly month after month . ` Spring is coming , ' said the old sergeant that morning , as he hoisted the storm-flag ; it 's getting wildlike . ' Jeannette and I went through the lessons , but towards three o'clock a north-wind came sweeping over the Straits and enveloped the island in a whirling snow-storm , partly eddies of white splinters torn from the ice-bound forest , and partly a new , fall of round snow pellets careering along on the gale , quite unlike the soft , feathery flakes of early winter . ` You can not go home now , Jeannette , ' I said , looking out through the little west window ; our cottage stood back on the hill , and from this side window we could see the Straits , going down toward far Waugoschance ; the steep fort-hill outside the wall ; the long meadow , once an Indian burial-place , below ; and beyond on the beach the row of cabins inhabited by the French fishermen , one of them the home of my pupil . The girl seldom went round the point into the village ; its one street and a half seemed distasteful to her . She climbed the stone-wall on the ridge behind her cabin , took an Indian trail through the grass in summer , or struck across on the snow-crust in winter , ran up the steep side of the fort-hill like a wild chamois , and came into the garrison enclosure with a careless nod to the admiring sentinel , as she passed under the rear entrance .