midday in summer
Although the five odd minutes the curling occupied were durance vile to Laura , the child was proud of her hair in her own way ; and when in the street she heard some one say : `` Look -- what pretty curls ! '' she would give her head a toss and send them all a-rippling . In addition to this , there was a crowning glory connected with them : one hot December morning , when they had been tangled and Mother had kept her standing too long , she had fainted , pulling the whole dressing-table down about her ears ; and ever since , she had been marked off in some mysterious fashion from the other children . Mother would not let her go out at midday in summer : Sarah would say : `` Let that be , ca n't you ! '' did she try to lift something that was too heavy for her ; and the younger children were to be quelled by a threat to faint on the spot , if they did not do as she wished . `` Laura 's faint '' had become a byword in the family ; and Laura herself held it for so important a fact in her life that she had more than once begun a friendship with the words : `` Have you ever fainted ? I have . ''