midnight
Thyrza asked , her ears tingling at her audacity . ` Some day , I 've no doubt whatever . ' Thyrza sewed , as a rule , for six hours a day , save of course on the days when she went to the Home . For her leisure she had found so much occupation that she seldom went to bed before midnight . In her walk to the omnibus which took her to Hampstead , she had to pass a second-hand book-shop , and it became her habit to put aside sixpence a week -- more she could not -- for the purchasing of books . With no one to guide her choice , and restricted as she was in the matter of price , she sometimes made strange acquisitions . She avoided story books , and bought only such as seemed to her to contain solid matter -- history by preference , having learned from Gilbert that history was the best thing to study .