midnight
A faded home-made carpet covered the floor , a threadbare crimson curtain hung before the window , a rickety walnut table , dark with age , sat under the window against the wall ; old walnut chairs were placed each side of it ; old plated candlesticks , with the silver all worn off , graced the mantelpiece ; a good fire -- a cheap comfort in that well-wooded country -- blazed upon the hearth ; on the right side of the fireplace a few shelves contained some well-worn books , a flute , a few minerals and other little treasures belonging to Traverse ; on the left hand there was a dresser containing the little delfware , tea service and plates and dishes of the small family . Before the fire , with her knitting in her hand , sat Marah Rocke , watching the kettle as it hung singing over the blaze and the oven of biscuits that sat baking upon the hearth . Marah Rocke was at this time about thirty-five years of age , and of a singularly refined and delicate aspect for one of her supposed rank ; her little form , slight and flexible as that of a young girl , was clothed in a poor but neat black dress , relieved by a pure-white collar around her throat ; her jet-black hair was parted plainly over her `` low , sweet brow , '' brought down each side her thin cheeks and gathered into a bunch at the back of her shapely little head ; her face was oval , with regular features and pale olive complexion ; serious lips , closed in pensive thought , and soft , dark-brown eyes , full of tender affection and sorrowful memories , and too often cast down in meditation beneath the heavy shadows of their long , thick eyelashes , completed the melancholy beauty of a countenance not often seen among the hard-working children of toil . Marah Rocke was a very hard-working woman , sewing all day long and knitting through the twilight , and then again resuming her needle by candle-light and sewing until midnight -- and yet Marah Rocke made but a poor and precarious living for herself and son . Needlework , so ill-paid in large cities , is even worse paid in the country towns , and , though the cottage hearth was never cold , the widow 's meals were often scant . Lately her son , Traverse , who occasionally earned a trifle of money by doing `` with all his might whatever his hand could find to do , '' had been engaged by a grocer in the town to deliver his goods to his customers during the illness of the regular porter ; for which , as he was only a substitute , he received the very moderate sum of twenty-five cents a day . This occupation took Traverse from home at daybreak in the morning , and kept him absent until eight o'clock at night .