eleven o'clock
A certain timidity of character , endearing perhaps to the anxious heart of a mother , made this fault in the younger boy more likely to take root . For , in bold natures , there is a lavish and uncalculating recklessness which scorns self unconsciously and though there is a fear which arises from a loving heart , and is but sympathy for others -- the fear which belongs to a timid character is but egotism -- but , when physical , the regard for one 's own person : when moral , the anxiety for one 's own interests . It was in a small room in a lodging-house in the suburb of H -- that Mrs. Morton was seated by the window , nervously awaiting the knock of the postman , who was expected to bring her brother 's reply to her letter . It was therefore between ten and eleven o'clock -- a morning in the merry month of June . It was hot and sultry , which is rare in an English June . A flytrap , red , white , and yellow , suspended from the ceiling , swarmed with flies ; flies were on the ceiling , flies buzzed at the windows ; the sofa and chairs of horsehair seemed stuffed with flies . There was an air of heated discomfort in the thick , solid moreen curtains , in the gaudy paper , in the bright-staring carpet , in the very looking-glass over the chimney-piece , where a strip of mirror lay imprisoned in an embrace of frame covered with yellow muslin .