midnight
Not often had she been too poor to buy a handful of flowers for the table , and never once , except during her illness , had she come home too tired to change to the black silk gown , which she had turned and made from bishop sleeves to small ones , and from `` dropped '' shoulders to high ones , for the last six or seven years . The damask on the table was darned and mended , but it was always spotlessly fresh . In winter the fire was made up brightly in the evenings ; in summer the room was deliciously scented with rose geranium and heliotrope from the box in the window . For ten years she had not had a holiday ; she had worked harder than a man , harder than any servant , for she had worked from dawn until midnight ; but into her hard life she had instilled a quality of soul which had enabled her to endure the strain without breaking . `` No life is so hard that you ca n't make it easier by the way you take it , '' she had said to herself in the beginning ; and remembering always that courage is one of the eternal virtues , she had disciplined her mind as well as her body to firmness and elasticity of fibre . `` Nobody , except myself , is ever going to make me happy , '' she would repeat over and over again when the day was wearying and the work heavy . `` I want to be happy .