half past six
She was an old seamstress who came to my parents ' house once a week , every Thursday , to mend the linen . My parents lived in one of those country houses called chateaux , which are merely old houses with pointed roofs , to which are attached three or four adjacent farms . The village , a large village , almost a small market town , was a few hundred yards off , and nestled round the church , a red brick church , which had become black with age . Well , every Thursday Mother Bellflower came between half past six and seven in the morning , and went immediately into the linen-room and began to work . She was a tall , thin , bearded or rather hairy woman , for she had a beard all over her face , a surprising , an unexpected beard , growing in improbable tufts , in curly bunches which looked as if they had been sown by a madman over that great face , the face of a gendarme in petticoats . She had them on her nose , under her nose , round her nose , on her chin , on her cheeks ; and her eyebrows , which were extraordinarily thick and long , and quite gray , bushy and bristling , looked exactly like a pair of mustaches stuck on there by mistake . She limped , but not like lame people generally do , but like a ship pitching .