noon
They bought the special editions of the evening papers ; they read the military dispatches and the stories of the war correspondents from beginning to end ; they stared blankly at the printed columns that recorded the disasters of Nicholson 's Nek , and Colenso and Spion Kop . But the forms were grey and insubstantial ; it was all fiat and grey like the pictures in the illustrated papers ; the very blood of it ran grey . It was n't real . For Frances the brown walls of the house , the open wings of its white shutters , the green garden and tree of Heaven were real ; so were Jack Straw 's Castle and Harrow on the Hill ; morning and noon and night were real , and getting up and dressing and going to bed ; most real of all the sight and sound and touch of her husband and her children . Only now and then the vision grew solid and stood firm . Frances carried about with her distinct images of Maurice , to which she could attach the rest . Thus she had an image of Long Tom , an immense slender muzzle , tilted up over a high ridge , nosing out Maurice .