seven o'clock in the morning
Mary Howitt . The sun was shining brightly on the battlements and casements of Lovell Tower . The season was spring , and the year 1395 . Within the house , though it was barely seven o'clock in the morning , all was bustle and confusion , for Dame Lovell was superintending her handmaidens in the preparation of dinner . A buxom woman was Dame Lovell , neither tall nor short , but decidedly stout , with a round , good-natured face , which just then glowed and burned under the influence of the fire roaring on the large grateless hearth . She wore a black dress , heavily trimmed at the bottom with fur , and she carried on her head one of those remarkable elevations generally known as the Syrian or conical head-dress , made of black stiffened gauze , and spangled with golden stars . Her assistants , mostly girls of from sixteen to twenty-five years of age , were occupied in various parts of the kitchen ; while Mistress Katherine , a staid-looking woman of middle age , who filled a post somewhat similar to the modern one of housekeeper , was employed at a side table in mixing some particularly elaborate compound .