midnight
She had not yet learned to care much about books ; but one of these had now become precious in her eyes , because she knew it contained poems that her father had been fond of reading . She soon found it -- a volume by some Scotch poet of little fame , whose inward commotions had generated their own alleviation in the harmonies of ordered words in which they embodied themselves . In it Annie searched for something to learn before the following night , and found a ballad the look of which she liked , and which she very soon remembered as one she had heard her father read . It was very cold work to learn it at midnight , in winter , and in a garret too ; but so intent was she , that before she went to bed , she had learned four or five verses so thoroughly that she could repeat them without thinking of what came next , and these she kept saying over and over again even in her dreams . As soon as she woke in the dark morning she put her hand under her pillow to feel the precious volume , which she hoped would be the bond to bind her yet more closely to the boat and its builders . She took it to school in her pocket , learning the whole way as she went , and taking a roundabout road that her cousins might not interrupt her . She kept repeating and peeping every possible moment during school hours , and then all the way home again .