nearly midnight
`` I keep feelin ' things like wings a-touching of me , '' she muttered . `` I hate the feelin ' . When nothing ai n't happened ever , what 's the reason it has ter begin now ? '' It was nearly midnight when Peneluna sat down by her fireside to think . She had cooked a meal for Larry and carried it to him ; she had soothed and fed Jan-an and put her to bed on a cot near the bed upon which old Philander Sniff had once rested , and now Peneluna , with Sniff 's old Bible on her knees , felt safe to think and read , and it seemed as if the wings Jan-an had sensed were touching her ! The book was marked at passages that had appealed to the old man . Often , after Mary-Clare had read to him and left , thinking that she had made no impression , the trembling , gnarled hand had pencilled the words to be reread in lonely moments .