ten o'clock in the morning
To have Hadrian , a young man of twenty-one , in the house with them , after he had left them so coldly five years before , was a trying circumstance . They were in a flutter . Emmie persuaded her father to have his bed made finally in the morning-room downstairs , whilst his room upstairs was prepared for Hadrian . This was done , and preparations were going on for the arrival , when , at ten o'clock in the morning the young man suddenly turned up , quite unexpectedly . Cousin Emmie , with her hair bobbed up in absurd little bobs round her forehead , was busily polishing the stair-rods , while Cousin Matilda was in the kitchen washing the drawing-room ornaments in a lather , her sleeves rolled back on her thin arms , and her head tied up oddly and coquettishly in a duster . Cousin Matilda blushed deep with mortification when the self-possessed young man walked in with his kit-bag , and put his cap on the sewing machine . He was little and self-confident , with a curious neatness about him that still suggested the Charity Institution .