nine o'clock
Harry glanced at him and his companions as if they were beings of a strange and mysterious race ; and the numerous votive offerings to `` Our Lady of La Salette '' and elsewhere he eyed askance with the expression of a very sound Protestant indeed . The lovely luxuriant architecture , the foliated carvings , were dim in the evening light . A young sculptor , who was engaged in the work of restoring some of these rich carvings , came down from his perch while the strangers stood to admire them . That night by nine o'clock Bessie Fairfax was in the _ dortoir _ at Madame Fournier 's -- a chamber of six windows and twenty beds , narrow , hard , white , and , except her own and one other , empty . By whose advice it was that she was sent to school a week in advance of the opening she never knew . But there she was in the wilderness of a house , with only a dejected English teacher suffering from chronic face-ache , and another scholar , younger than herself , for company . The great madame was still absent at Bayeux , spending the vacation with her uncle the canon .