about five o'clock
In the afternoon he was busy in the shop -- not too busy , however , to notice John . What ailed the lad ? While he was inside , as soon as the door did but creak in the wind he sprang to open it , but for the most part he preferred to stand outside watching the stall and the street . When Louie appeared about five o'clock -- for her hours with Dora were not yet regular -- he forthwith became her slave . She set him to draw up the fire while she got the tea , and then , without taking any notice of David , she marched John upstairs to help her hang her curtains , lay her carpet , and nail up the coloured fashion plates and newspaper prints of royalties or beauties with which she was adorning the bare walls of the attic . When all her additions had been made to David 's original stock ; when the little deal dressing-table and glass had been draped in the cheapest of muslins over the pinkest of calicoes ; when the flowery curtains had been tied back with blue ribbons ; when the china vases on the mantelpiece had been filled with nodding plumes of dyed grasses , mostly of a rosy red ; and a long glass in a somewhat damaged condition , but still presenting enough surface to enable Miss Louie to study herself therein from top to toe , had been propped against the wall ; there was and could be nothing in the neighbourhood of Potter Street , so John reflected , as he furtively looked about him , to vie with the splendours of Miss Grieve 's apartment . There was about it a sensuousness , a deliberate quest of luxury and gaiety , which a raw son of poverty could feel though he could not put it into words .