eleven
o'clock
The dull routine of the place pressed heavily upon her , and everything she had to do was irksome . The other girls accommodated themselves more or less successfully to the circumstances of their lives ; but Beth in herself was always at war with her surroundings , and her busy brain teemed with ingenious devices to vary the monotony . The confinement , want of relaxation , and of proper physical training , very soon told upon her health and spirits , as indeed they did upon the greater number of the girls , who suffered unnecessarily in various ways . Beth very soon had to have an extra hour in bed in the morning , a cup of soup at eleven o'clock , a tonic three times a day , and a slice of thick bread and butter with a glass of stout on going to bed ; such things were not stinted during Miss Clifford 's administration ; but it was a case of treating effects which all the time were being renewed by causes that might and ought to have been removed , but were let alone . St. Catherine 's Mansion was regulated on a system of exemplary dulness . There is a certain dowager still extant who considers it absurd to provide amusement for people of inferior station . All people who earn their living are people of inferior station to her ; she has never heard of such a thing as the dignity of labour .