nine
o'clock
`` It might be well for both you and me if she were here , '' said she , seriously . However , she tempered a little her decorous following of Mistress Perkins 's precepts , and she and Thomas went hand in hand up the lane and across the fields . There was no dew that night , and the moon was full . It was after nine o'clock when Thomas left her at the gate in the fence which separated Evelina Adams 's garden from the field , and watched her disappear between the flowers . The moon shone full on the garden . Evelina walked as it were over a silver dapple , which her light gown seemed to brush away and dispel for a moment . The bushes stood in sweet mysterious clumps of shadow .