noon
She was of just your age ; she is dead at eighteen , and her father commissioned me to paint her in death . -- Pour me out some water ; then I will proceed as coldly as a man crying the description of a runaway slave . '' He drank a deep draught , and wandered restlessly up and down in front of his sister , while he told her all that had happened to him during the last few days . The day before yesterday , at noon , he had left the inn where he had been carousing with friends , gay and careless , and had obeyed the call of Seleukus . Just before raising the knocker he had been singing cheerfully to himself . Never had he felt more fully content -- the gayest of the gay . One of the first men in the town , and a connoisseur , had honored him with a fine commission , and the prospect of painting something dead had pleased him .