midnight
The door opened : -- oh , it was autumnal ! One day had fallen away like a leaf out of my forest , and I had not been there to see it go ! At what hour of the twenty-four does a day shed itself out of our lives ? Not , I think , on the stroke of the clock , at midnight , or at cock-crow . Some people , perhaps , would say -- with the first sleep ; and that the `` beauty-sleep '' is the new day putting out its green wings . _ I _ think it must be not till something happens to make the new day a stronger impression than the last . So it would please me to think that your yesterday dropped off as you opened the door ; and that , had I peeped and seen you coming up the stairs , I should have seen you looking a day younger .