nine o'clock
There was many a gap in the weather-beaten fence where the child might have followed , but she dare not , for she was in great awe of the place , because the preacher who was said to have died and come to life again lived there . She only stood and looked through the fence , and the tanager -- having flitted near the house -- soared and settled among the feathery boughs of a proud acacia tree ; she had to look across half an acre of bushes to see him , and then he was so high and so far that it seemed -LRB- as when looking at the stars -RRB- she did not see him , but only the ray of scarlet light that travelled from him through an atmosphere of leaflets . It was very trying , for any one knows that it is _ something _ to be able to say that you have come to close quarters with a scarlet tanager . Winifred , stooping and looking through the fence , soon heard the college bell jangle ; she knew that it was nine o'clock , and boys and masters were being ingathered for morning work . The college buildings in their bare enclosure stood on the other side of the road . Winifred would have been too shy to pass the playground while the boys were out , but now that every soul connected with the place would be indoors , she thought she might go round the sides of the Harmon garden and see the red bird much nearer from a place she thought of . This place was nothing but a humble , disused , and untidy burying-ground , that occupied the next lot in the narrow strip of land that here for a mile divided road and river .