midnight
John went round the corner treading on air . For the first time in his life his father had praised him . He peeped through a kink at the side of the kitchen blind , where its descent was arrested by a flowerpot in the corner of the window-sill . As he had expected , though it was long past midnight , his mother was not yet in bed . She was folding a white cloth over her bosom , and about her , on the backs of chairs , there were other such cloths , drying by the fire . He watched her curiously ; once he seemed to hear a whimpering moan . When she buttoned her dress above the cloth , she gazed sadly at the dying embers -- the look of one who has gained short respite from a task of painful tendance on the body , yet is conscious that the task and the pain are endless , and will have to be endured , to-morrow and to-morrow , till she dies .