three o'clock
-- But now came a station and , though the train did not stop , she sat up , in order that people might see she was travelling alone . She grew hungry and attacked her lunch , and it turned out that Mother had not provided too much after all . When she had finished , had brushed herself clean of crumbs and handled , till her finger-tips were sore , the pompous half-crown she had found in her pocket , she fell to thinking of them at home , and of what they would now be doing . It was between two and three o'clock : the sun would be full on the flagstones of the back verandah ; inch by inch Pin and Leppie would be driven away to find a cooler spot for their afternoon game , while little Frank slept , and Sarah splashed the dinner-dishes in the brick-floored kitchen . Mother sat sewing , and she would still be sitting there , still sewing , when the shadow of the fir tree , which at noon was shrunken like a dwarf , had stretched to giant size , and the children had opened the front gate to play in the shade of the public footpath . -- At the thought of these shadows , of all the familiar things she would not see again for months to come , Laura 's eyelids began to smart . They had flashed through several stations ; now they stopped ; and her mind was diverted by the noise and bustle .