midday
Unlike the gold which needed nothing , and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude -- which was hidden away from the daylight , was deaf to the song of birds , and started to no human tones -- Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing desires , seeking and loving sunshine , and living sounds , and living movements ; making trial of everything , with trust in new joy , and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her . The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle , leading to nothing beyond itself ; but Eppie was an object compacted of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward , and carried them far away from their old eager pacing towards the same blank limit -- carried them away to the new things that would come with the coming years , when Eppie would have learned to understand how her father Silas cared for her ; and made him look for images of that time in the ties and charities that bound together the families of his neighbours . The gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer and longer , deafened and blinded more and more to all things except the monotony of his loom and the repetition of his web ; but Eppie called him away from his weaving , and made him think all its pauses a holiday , reawakening his senses with her fresh life , even to the old winter-flies that came crawling forth in the early spring sunshine , and warming him into joy because _ she _ had joy . And when the sunshine grew strong and lasting , so that the buttercups were thick in the meadows , Silas might be seen in the sunny midday , or in the late afternoon when the shadows were lengthening under the hedgerows , strolling out with uncovered head to carry Eppie beyond the Stone-pits to where the flowers grew , till they reached some favourite bank where he could sit down , while Eppie toddled to pluck the flowers , and make remarks to the winged things that murmured happily above the bright petals , calling `` Dad-dad 's '' attention continually by bringing him the flowers . Then she would turn her ear to some sudden bird-note , and Silas learned to please her by making signs of hushed stillness , that they might listen for the note to come again : so that when it came , she set up her small back and laughed with gurgling triumph . Sitting on the banks in this way , Silas began to look for the once familiar herbs again ; and as the leaves , with their unchanged outline and markings , lay on his palm , there was a sense of crowding remembrances from which he turned away timidly , taking refuge in Eppie 's little world , that lay lightly on his enfeebled spirit . As the child 's mind was growing into knowledge , his mind was growing into memory : as her life unfolded , his soul , long stupefied in a cold narrow prison , was unfolding too , and trembling gradually into full consciousness .