twelve o’clock
But she talked of all things with remarkable vividness of memory -- she recalled the right-hand corner of the large Perugino and the position of the hands of the Saint Elizabeth in the picture next to it . She had her opinions as to the character of many famous works of art , differing often from Ralph with great sharpness and defending her interpretations with as much ingenuity as good-humour . Isabel listened to the discussions taking place between the two with a sense that she might derive much benefit from them and that they were among the advantages she could n't have enjoyed for instance in Albany . In the clear May mornings before the formal breakfast -- this repast at Mrs. Touchett 's was served at twelve o'clock -- she wandered with her cousin through the narrow and sombre Florentine streets , resting a while in the thicker dusk of some historic church or the vaulted chambers of some dispeopled convent . She went to the galleries and palaces ; she looked at the pictures and statues that had hitherto been great names to her , and exchanged for a knowledge which was sometimes a limitation a presentiment which proved usually to have been a blank . She performed all those acts of mental prostration in which , on a first visit to Italy , youth and enthusiasm so freely indulge ; she felt her heart beat in the presence of immortal genius and knew the sweetness of rising tears in eyes to which faded fresco and darkened marble grew dim . But the return , every day , was even pleasanter than the going forth ; the return into the wide , monumental court of the great house in which Mrs. Touchett , many years before , had established herself , and into the high , cool rooms where the carven rafters and pompous frescoes of the sixteenth century looked down on the familiar commodities of the age of advertisement .