one in the morning
Only Miss Quincey remained . St. Sidwell 's in the weeding time had not been a bed of roses for Miss Cursiter , and Miss Quincey , blameless but incompetent , was a thorn in her side , a thorn that stuck . Impossible to remove Miss Quincey quickly , she was so very blameless and she worked so hard . She worked from nine till one in the morning , from two-thirty till four-thirty in the afternoon , and from six-thirty in the evening till any hour in the night . She worked with the desperate zeal of the superseded who knows that she holds her post on sufferance , the terrified tenacity of the middle-aged who feels behind her the swift-footed rivalry of youth . And the more she worked the more she annoyed Miss Cursiter . So now , above all the tramping and shuffling and hissing , you heard the self-restrained and slightly metallic utterance of the Head .