three o'clock
She did , but this time in a foreign language , French as Mildred whispered -- from the letters of the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque -- and my admiration for Alma went up tenfold . I wondered if it could possibly occur that I should ever come to know her . There is no worship like that of a child , and life for me , which had seemed so cold and dark the day before , became warm and bright with a new splendour . I was impatient of everything that took me away from the opportunity of meeting with Alma -- the visit to the lay-sisters to be measured for my new black clothes , the three o'clock `` rosary , '' when the nuns walked with their classes in the sunshine and , above all , the voluntary visit to the Blessed Sacrament in the Church of the Convent , which seemed to me large and gorgeous , though divided across the middle by an open bronze screen , called a Cancello -- the inner half , as Mildred whispered , being for the inmates of the school , while the outer half was for the congregation which came on Sunday to Benediction . But at four o'clock we had dinner , when Alma read again -- this time in Italian -- from the writings of Saint Francis of Sales -- and then , to my infinite delight , came a long recreation , when all the girls scampered out into the Convent garden , which was still bright with afternoon sunshine and as merry with laughter and shouts as the seashore on a windy summer morning . The garden was a large bare enclosure , bounded on two sides by the convent buildings and on the other two by a yellow wall and an avenue made by a line of stone pines with heads like open umbrellas , but it had no other foliage except an old tree which reminded me of Tommy the Mate , having gnarled and sprawling limbs , and standing like a weather-beaten old sailor , four-square in the middle . A number of the girls were singing and dancing around this tree , and I felt so happy just then that I should have loved to join them , but I was consumed by a desire to come to close quarters with the object of my devotion , so I looked eagerly about me and asked Mildred if Alma was likely to be there .