ten o'clock
Whatever the cause , she felt stronger and more free from pain than for many months . At dawn she slept . The striking of a church-clock woke her at nine , giving her just time to dress with care and set forth to keep her appointment . On ordinary Sundays the Byasses breakfasted at ten o'clock ; this morning the meal was ready at eight , and Bessie 's boisterous spirits declared the exception to be of joyous significance . Finding that Samuel 's repeated promises to rise were the merest evasion , she rushed into the room where he lay fly-fretted , dragged the pillows from under his tousled head , and so belaboured him in schoolboy fashion that he had no choice but to leap towards his garments . In five minutes he roared down the kitchen-stairs for shaving-water , and in five minutes more was seated in his shirt-sleeves , consuming fried bacon with prodigious appetite . Bessie had the twofold occupation of waiting upon him and finishing the toilet of the baby ; she talked incessantly and laughed with an echoing shrillness which would have given a headache for the rest of the day to any one of average nervous sensibility .