midnight
Herminia stood face to face with abject poverty . Spurred by want , by indignation , by terror , by a sense of the absolute necessity for action , she carried her writing materials then and there into Dolly 's sick-room , and sitting by her child 's cot , she began to write , she hardly knew what , as the words themselves came to her . In a fever of excitement she wrote and wrote and wrote . She wrote as one writes in the silence of midnight . It was late before she finished . When her manuscript was complete , she slipped out and posted it to a weekly paper . It appeared that same Saturday , and was the beginning of Herminia 's most valuable connection .