6 A.M.
` Wider , perhaps , not deeper , Jane , ' suggested Miss Adeline . And Gillian thought -- though she felt it would be too sentimental to say -- that in her life , persons and scenes outside her own family had seemed to ` come like shadows and so depart ' ; and there was a general sense of depression at the partings , the anxiety , and the being unsettled again when she was just beginning to have a home . If Fergus had not yet discovered the secret of perpetual motion , Gillian felt as if Aunt Jane had done so , and moreover that the greater proportion of parish matters were one vast machine , of which she was the moving power . As she was a small spare woman , able to do with a very moderate amount of sleep , her day lasted from 6 A.M. to some unnamed time after midnight ; and as she was also very methodical , she got through an appalling amount of business , and with such regularity that those who knew her habits could tell with tolerable certainty , within reasonable limits , where she would be found and what she would be doing at any hour of the seven days of the week . Everything she influenced seemed to recur as regularly as the motions of the great ruthless-looking engines that Gillian had seen at work at Belfast ; the only loose cog being apparently her sister Adeline , who quietly took her own way , seldom came downstairs before eleven o'clock , went out and came in , made visits or received them , wrote letters , read and worked at her own sweet will . Only two undertakings seemed to belong to her -- a mission working party , and an Italian class of young ladies ; and even the presidency of these often lapsed upon her sister , when she had had one of those ` bad nights ' of asthma , which were equally sleepless to both sisters . She was principally useful by her exquisite needlework , both in church embroidery and for sales ; and likewise as the recipient of all the messages left for Miss Mohun , which she never forgot , besides that , having a clear sensible head , she was useful in consultation .