midnight
And although she had lived in a very humble home , yet there was something about either it or her , or the people amongst whom she had been thrown during the last few years , which had so changed her , that whereas , six or seven years ago , you would have perceived that she was not altogether a lady by birth and education , yet now she might have been placed among the highest in the land , and would have been taken by the most critical judge for their equal , although ignorant of their conventional etiquette -- an ignorance which she would have acknowledged in a simple child-like way , being unconscious of any false shame . Her whole heart was in her boy . She often feared that she loved him too much -- more than God Himself -- yet she could not bear to pray to have her love for her child lessened . But she would kneel down by his little bed at night -- at the deep , still midnight -- with the stars that kept watch over Rizpah shining down upon her , and tell God what I have now told you , that she feared she loved her child too much , yet could not , would not , love him less ; and speak to Him of her one treasure as she could speak to no earthly friend . And so , unconsciously , her love for her child led her up to love to God , to the All-knowing , who read her heart . It might be superstition -- I dare say it was -- but , somehow , she never lay down to rest without saying , as she looked her last on her boy , `` Thy will , not mine , be done ; '' and even while she trembled and shrank with infinite dread from sounding the depths of what that will might be , she felt as if her treasure were more secure to waken up rosy and bright in the morning , as one over whose slumbers God 's holy angels had watched , for the very words which she had turned away in sick terror from realising the night before . Her daily absence at her duties to the Bradshaw children only ministered to her love for Leonard .