four o'clock
`` I shall win this time , '' she wrote , `` and , though life here is not a bed of roses , yet it is not so very bad , and when the week is over I shall look back at it with lots of funny thoughts . Oh , Nan , prepare a fatted calf for Thursday night , for I shall come home a veritable Prodigal Son ! Of course , I do n't mean this literally ; we have lovely things to eat here , but it 's ` hame , hame , fain wad I be . ' I wo n't write again , I 'll probably get no chance , but send Miller for me at four o'clock on Thursday afternoon . '' After writing the letter Patty felt less homesick . It seemed , somehow , to bring Thursday nearer , to write about it . She began to dress for dinner , and , in a spirit of mischief , she took pains to make a most fetching toilette .