noon
She accounted for this pale face and these hollow eyes by declaring that she had sat up reading until a very late hour on the previous night . Sir Michael and his young wife breakfasted in the library at a comfortable round table , wheeled close to the blazing fire ; and Alicia was compelled to share this meal with her step-mother , however she might avoid that lady in the long interval between breakfast and dinner . The March morning was bleak and dull , and a drizzling rain fell incessantly , obscuring the landscape and blotting out the distance . There were very few letters by the morning post ; the daily newspapers did not arrive until noon ; and such aids to conversation being missing , there was very little talk at the breakfast table . Alicia looked out at the drizzling rain drifting against the broad window-panes . `` No riding to-day , '' she said ; `` and no chance of any callers to enliven us , unless that ridiculous Bob comes crawling through the wet from Mount Stanning . '' Have you ever heard anybody , whom you knew to be dead , alluded to in a light , easy going manner by another person who did not know of his death -- alluded to as doing that or this , as performing some trivial everyday operation -- when you know that he has vanished away from the face of this earth , and separated himself forever from all living creatures and their commonplace pursuits in the awful solemnity of death ?