midnight
At times like these , minute circumstances assume giant and majestic proportions ; the very swinging open of the white gate that admitted us into the forest , arrested my thoughts as matter of interest ; it was an every day act , never to occur again ! The setting crescent of the moon glittered through the massy trees to our right , and when we entered the park , we scared a troop of deer , that fled bounding away in the forest shades . Our two boys quietly slept ; once , before our road turned from the view , I looked back on the castle . Its windows glistened in the moonshine , and its heavy outline lay in a dark mass against the sky -- the trees near us waved a solemn dirge to the midnight breeze . Idris leaned back in the carriage ; her two hands pressed mine , her countenance was placid , she seemed to lose the sense of what she now left , in the memory of what she still possessed . My thoughts were sad and solemn , yet not of unmingled pain . The very excess of our misery carried a relief with it , giving sublimity and elevation to sorrow .