I only wished I knew for certain what Sunflowers look like when they are asleep, and whether you can wake them up with candles.

And I went on wondering, and watching the moons.
Then the stairs clock struck a quarter-past eleven, and I thought--"Oh, Grace! If you were not such a coward, if you had jumped up when the clock struck eleven, and slipped down the back-stairs, with the Rushlight in your hands, and unlocked the side-door, you might have run down the grass walk without hurting your feet, and flashed it in the faces of the Sunflowers, and had a good look, and got back to bed again before the clock struck a quarter-past; and then it would have been done, and couldn't be undone, and you would have known whether they look like the picture, and if they wake up with candles, and you never could have unknown.

But now, you'll go on putting off, and being frightened about it, and perhaps to-morrow Jael will tell Grandmamma you were asleep, and she won't let you have a Rushlight any more, not even when you are a grown-up young lady; and even when you get married and go away, you may marry a man who won't let you have one; and so you may never never know what you want to know, all because you're a Michaelmas Goose." Then the Rushlight began to get dim again, so I got up and snuffed it, and it shone out bright, and I thought, "If it was Margery she would do it straight off.

I won't be a Michaelmas Goose; I'll go while I'm up, and be back before the stairs clock strikes again, and then it will be done and can't be undone, and I shall know, and can't unknow." So I took up the Rushlight and went as fast as I could.
I met a black beetle on the back-stairs, which was horrid, but I went on.

The side-door key is very rusty and very stiff; I had to put down the Rushlight and use both my hands, and just then the clock struck the half-hour, which was rather a good thing, for it drowned the noise of the lock.