one in the morning
` I 'll just rub out me apron an ' press it off , ' she said , ` for if _ she 's _ to head the table , I can see she 'll be particular ! ' '' Nothing could have kept Miss Mary up but the fact that her own room was yet uncleaned . The lust of soap and water had entered into her , and she ate and answered and passed the butter dish like one in a dream , looking forward with the last of her strength to sleeping in an immaculate chamber . And at half-past one in the morning , she did so . The warm bath in the painted tin tub was a luxury she had never imagined ; as the sheets received her tired body , aching in every joint , she tasted for the one moment before sleep blotted out consciousness the ecstasy of earned rest after steady , worried toil , and it was very sweet . Privilege of the clumsiest hod-carrier , it was utterly new to Miss Mary , and she in her innocence , thought it due to delight at the prospect of board and lodging and , say , twenty-five dollars a month ! She did not know that she had hummed , unconsciously , during the afternoon , a song of her early girlhood ; nor that the blood , long stagnant , that had raced through every vein as she stooped and beat and lifted and cleansed , was driving the crawling vapours from that mysterious grey tissue in her skull that had so long plagued and confused her .