morning, about four o'clock
Perhaps you would be so too , if learning cost you the privation which it costs some of them . But this concealment could not last . My only wonder is , that I continued to get whole months of undiscovered study . One morning , about four o'clock , as might have been expected , my mother heard me stirring , came in , and found me sitting crosslegged on my bed , stitching away , indeed , with all my might , but with a Virgil open before me . She glanced at the book , clutched it with one hand and my arm with the other , and sternly asked , `` Where did you get this heathen stuff ? '' A lie rose to my lips ; but I had been so gradually entangled in the loathed meshes of a system of concealment , and consequent prevarication , that I felt as if one direct falsehood would ruin for ever my fast-failing self-respect , and I told her the whole truth . She took the book and left the room .