eight
o'clock
Floss never did quite close a door . Rose followed her down the hall , shut and bolted it , Chicago fashion . The sick woman in the front bedroom had dropped into one of her fitful morning dozes . At eight o'clock the little flat was very still . If you knew nothing about Rose ; if you had not already been told that she slept on the sitting-room davenport ; that she was taken for granted as the family drudge ; that she was , in that household , merely an intelligent machine that made beds , fried eggs , filled hot water bags , you would get a characterization of her from this : She was the sort of person who never has a closet or bureau drawer all her own . Her few and negligible garments hung apologetically in obscure corners of closets dedicated to her sister 's wardrobe or her brother 's , or her spruce and fussy old father 's . Vague personal belongings , such as combings , handkerchiefs , a spectacle case , a hairbrush , were found tucked away in a desk pigeon-hole , a table drawer , or on the top shelf in the bathroom .