noon
My mistress , knowing I had been ill , insisted that I should take my walk regular , and often invented errands for me : -- a yard of ribbon to be fetched from the village , a letter posted , or a book returned to Mr. Ranford . As soon as I was out of doors my spirits rose , and I looked forward to my walks through the bare moist-smelling woods ; but the moment I caught sight of the house again my heart dropped down like a stone in a well . It was not a gloomy house exactly , yet I never entered it but a feeling of gloom came over me . Mrs. Brympton seldom went out in winter ; only on the finest days did she walk an hour at noon on the south terrace . Excepting Mr. Ranford , we had no visitors but the doctor , who drove over from D -- about once a week . He sent for me once or twice to give me some trifling direction about my mistress , and though he never told me what her illness was , I thought , from a waxy look she had now and then of a morning , that it might be the heart that ailed her . The season was soft and unwholesome , and in January we had a long spell of rain .