Eleven o'clock
On that day , on that lovely 6th of April , such as I have described it , that 6th of April , about nine o'clock in the morning , we were seated at breakfast near the open window -- we , that is , Agnes , myself , and little Francis ; the freshness of morning spirits rested upon us ; the golden light of the morning sun illuminated the room ; incense was floating through the air from the gorgeous flowers within and without the house ; there in youthful happiness we sat gathered together , a family of love , and there we never sat again . Never again were we three gathered together , nor ever shall be , so long as the sun and its golden light -- the morning and the evening -- the earth and its flowers endure . Often have I occupied myself in recalling every circumstance the most trivial of this the final morning of what merits to be called my life . Eleven o'clock , I remember , was striking when Agnes came into my study , and said that she would go into the city , -LRB- for we lived in a quite rural suburb , -RRB- that she would execute some trifling commissions which she had received from a friend in the country , and would be at home again between one and two for a stroll which we had agreed to take in the neighboring meadows . About twenty minutes after this she again came into my study dressed for going abroad ; for such was my admiration of her , that I had a fancy -- fancy it must have been , and yet still I felt it to be real -- that under every change she looked best ; if she put on a shawl , then a shawl became the most feminine of ornaments ; if she laid aside her shawl and her bonnet , then how nymph-like she seemed in her undisguised and unadorned beauty ! Full-dress seemed for the time to be best , as bringing forward into relief the splendor of her person , and allowing the exposure of her arms ; a simple morning-dress , again , seemed better still , as fitted to call out the childlike innocence of her face , by confining the attention to that . But all these are feelings of fond and blind affection , hanging with rapture over the object of something too like idolatry .