nine
o'clock
Bitter and dark as was this January day , I remember leaving the classe , and running down without bonnet to the bottom of the long garden , and then lingering amongst the stripped shrubs , in the forlorn hope that the postman 's ring might occur while I was out of hearing , and I might thus be spared the thrill which some particular nerve or nerves , almost gnawed through with the unremitting tooth of a fixed idea , were becoming wholly unfit to support . I lingered as long as I dared without fear of attracting attention by my absence . I muffled my head in my apron , and stopped my ears in terror of the torturing clang , sure to be followed by such blank silence , such barren vacuum for me . At last I ventured to re-enter the first classe , where , as it was not yet nine o'clock , no pupils had been admitted . The first thing seen was a white object on my black desk , a white , flat object . The post had , indeed , arrived ; by me unheard . Rosine had visited my cell , and , like some angel , had left behind her a bright token of her presence .