midnight
This must be done fasting and in silence . The ingredients are handed down in traditional form : -- `` An egg-shell full of salt , an egg-shell full of malt , and an egg-shell full of barley meal . '' When the cake is ready , it is put upon a pan over the fire , and the future husband will appear , turn the cake , and retire ; but if a word is spoken , or a fast is broken , during this awful ceremony , there is no knowing what horrible consequence would ensue ! The experiments in the present instance came to no result ; they that sowed the hemp-seed forgot the magic rhyme that they were to pronounce , so the true lover never appeared ; and as to the dumb-cake , what between the awful stillness they had to keep , and the awfulness of the midnight hour , their hearts failed them when they had put the cake in the pan , so that , on the striking of the great house-clock in the servants ' hall , they were seized with a sudden panic , and ran out of the room , to which they did not return until morning , when they found the mystic cake burnt to a cinder . The most persevering at these spells , however , is Phoebe Wilkins , the housekeeper 's niece . As she is a kind of privileged personage , and rather idle , she has more time to occupy herself with these matters . She has always had her head full of love and matrimony , she knows the dreaming book by heart , and is quite an oracle among the little girls of the family , who always come to her to interpret their dreams in the mornings .