noon
`` It is to keep time , Harry Mulford , is it not ? '' `` True , to keep time -- but to keep the time of a particular meridian ; you know what meridian means , I hope ? '' Rose looked intently at her lover , and she looked singularly lovely , for she blushed slightly , though her smile was as open and amicable as ingenuousness and affection could make it . `` A meridian means a point over our heads -- the spot where the sun is at noon , '' said Rose , doubtingly . `` Quite right ; but it also means longitude , in one sense . If you draw a line from one pole to the other , all the places it crosses are on the same meridian . As the sun first appears in the east , it follows that he rises sooner in places that are east , than in places that are further west .