midnight
`` We have more orders than we can execute , '' returned Phillis , curtly . `` Humph ! that sounds promising . I hope your mother is careful of you , and forbids any expenditure of midnight oil , or you will be reduced to a thread-paper . As I have told you you are not the same girl that you were when you came to the relief of my injured ankle . '' `` I feel tolerably substantial , thank you , '' returned Phillis , ungraciously , for , in common with other girls , she hated to be pitied for her looks , and she had a notion that Mrs. Cheyne only said this to plague her . `` Nan is our head and task mistress .