seven o'clock in the morning
`` It will be a cruel blow to Leslie -- poor child , and Annie , too . Alice , I think , need never know . But Norma -- even though this does n't seem the time or the place , let me be the first to congratulate you on your new position -- my old friend Theodore 's daughter , and the last of the Melroses ! '' At seven o'clock in the morning Norma , exhausted with excitement and emotion , took a hot bath , and finding things unchanged in the sick-room , except that the lights had been extinguished , and the winter daylight was drearily mingling with firelight , went on downstairs for coffee and for one more conference with the blinking nurses and the tired old doctor . She found herself too shaken to eat , but the hot drink was wonderfully soothing and stimulating , and for the first time , as she stood looking out into the street from the dining-room window , a sense of power and pride began to thrill her . Old people must die , of course , and after this sad and dark scene was over -- then what ? Then what ?