noon
Meantime , Hannah , she upon whom I leaned as upon a staff in all which respected her mistress , ran up stairs , after I had spoken and received her answer , in order hastily to dress and prepare herself for going out along with me to the city . I did not ask her to be quick in her movements : I knew there was no need : and , whilst she was absent , I took up , in one of my fretful movements of nervousness , a book which was lying upon a side-table : the book fell open of itself at a particular page ; and in that , perhaps , there was nothing extraordinary , for it was a little portable edition of _ Paradise Lost _ ; and the page was one which I must naturally have turned to many a time : for to Agnes I had read all the great masters of literature , especially those of modern times ; so that few people knew the high classics more familiarly : and as to the passage in question , from its divine beauty I had read it aloud to her , perhaps , on fifty separate occasions . All this I mention to take away any appearance of a vulgar attempt to create omens ; but still , in the very act of confessing the simple truth , and thus weakening the marvellous character of the anecdote , I must notice it as a strange instance of the ' _ Sortes Miltonianæ _ , ' -- that precisely at such a moment as this I should find thrown in my way , should feel tempted to take up , and should open , a volume containing such a passage as the following : and observe , moreover , that although the volume , _ once being taken up _ , would naturally open where it had been most frequently read , there were , however , many passages which had been read _ as _ frequently -- or more so . The particular passage upon which I opened at this moment was that most beautiful one in which the fatal morning separation is described between Adam and his bride -- that separation so pregnant with wo , which eventually proved the occasion of the mortal transgression -- the last scene between our first parents at which both were innocent and both were happy -- although the superior intellect already felt , and , in the slight altercation preceding this separation , had already expressed a dim misgiving of some coming change : these are the words , and in depth of pathos they have rarely been approached : -- ` Oft he to her his charge of quick return Repeated ; she to him as oft engag 'd To be returned by noon amid the bow ` r , And all things in best order to invite Noon-tide repast , or afternoon 's repose . Oh much deceived , much failing , hapless Eve ! Of thy presumed return , event perverse ! Thou never from that hour in Paradise Found ` st either sweet repast , or sound repose . ' '