five o'clock in the morning
She would rush away from Mademoiselle at every moment , run up the stairs to the sixth floor four at a time , kiss the child , give her her draught , arrange her comfortably in bed , look at her , and rush down again , all out of breath and red with pleasure . Care , caresses , the breath from the heart with which we revive a tiny flame on the point of dying out , consultations , doctor 's visits , costly medicines , the remedies of the wealthy , -- Germinie spared nothing for the little one and gave her everything . Her wages flowed through that channel . For almost a year she gave her beef juice every morning : sleepyhead that she was , she left her bed at five o'clock in the morning to prepare it , and awoke without being called , as mothers do . The child was out of danger at last , when Germinie received a visit one morning from her sister the dressmaker , who had been married two or three years to a machinist , and who came now to bid her adieu : her husband was going to accompany some fellow-workmen who had been hired to go to Africa . She was going with him and she proposed to Germinie that they should take the little one with them as a playmate for their own child . They offered to take her off her hands .