To Irene, who came down in her dressing gown with her hair just bundled up and her face coated with powder, eight o'clock was an unearthly hour at which to begin the day.

In New York she slept until eleven, read the paper until twelve, cooked and disposed of a combined breakfast-lunch at one, and if it was a matinee day, rushed round to the theater, and if it wasn't, killed time until her work called her in the evening.

A boob's life, as she called it, was a trying business, but the tyranny of the bustling woman with whom she lodged was such that if breakfast was not eaten at eight o'clock it was not there to eat.

Like an English undergraduate who scrambles out of bed to attend Chapel simply to avoid a fine, this product of Broadway theaterdom conformed to the rule of Mrs.Burrell's energetic house because the good air of Devon gave her a voracious appetite.
Then, too, even if she missed breakfast, she had to pay for it, "so there you are, old dear." Tootles, up with the lark as usual, was down among the ducks, giving Farmer Burrell a useful hand.

She delighted in doing so.