nine o'clock
She gave him the hand he held out his own for , and bade him good evening , with her head lifted just imperceptibly higher than was its wont , and her face turned full toward him . Her eyes met his with an honest calmness ; she had summoned herself back . He saw strength and earnestness ; a flush of feeling ; the face of a woman made to look nobleness and enthusiasm into the soul of a man . * * * * * She sat in the library that evening at nine o'clock . She had drawn up her large chair to the open fire ; her feet were resting on the low fender ; her eyes were watching shapes in the coals . Mrs. Lewes 's `` Middlemarch '' lay on her lap ; she had just begun to read it . Her hands , crossed upon each other , had fallen upon the page ; she had found something of herself in those first chapters .