midday
Would it not have been better , she asked herself , to merely avoid the talk she found so hateful by resolutely advancing other topics ? Perhaps not ; it was just possible that her words might bear some kind of fruit . But she wished heartily that this task of hopeless teaching had never been proposed to her ; it would trouble her waking every other day , and disturb with a profitless annoyance the ideal serenity for which she was striving . Yet it had one good result ; her mother 's follies and weaknesses were very easy to bear in comparison , and , when the midday meal was over , she enjoyed with more fulness the peace of her father 's room upstairs , where she had arranged a table for her own work . Brilliant sunlight made the bare garret , with its outlook over the fields towards Pendal , a cheerful and homelike retreat . Here , whilst the clock below wheezed and panted after the relentless hours , Emily read hard at German , or , when her mind called for rest , sheltered herself beneath the wing of some poet , who voiced for her the mute hymns of her soul . But the most sacred hour was when her parents had gone to rest , and she sat in her bedroom , writing her secret thoughts for Wilfrid some day to read .