midnight
He stood above the projecting oak ; the unknown beauty lay like the nymph of the scene ; her long black hair , which the fall of her hat had disengaged from its fastenings , drooping through the boughs : he saw that the first thing to be done , was to prevent her throwing her feet off the trunk , in the first movements of waking . He sat down on the rock , and placed his feet on the stem , securing her ankles between his own : one of her arms was round a branch of the fork , the other lay loosely on her side . The hand of this arm he endeavoured to reach , by leaning forward from his seat ; he approximated , but could not touch it : after several tantalising efforts , he gave up the point in despair . He did not attempt to wake her , because he feared it might have bad consequences , and he resigned himself to expect the moment of her natural waking , determined not to stir from his post , if she should sleep till midnight . In this period of forced inaction , he could contemplate at leisure the features and form of his charmer . She was not one of the slender beauties of romance ; she was as plump as a partridge ; her cheeks were two roses , not absolutely damask , yet verging thereupon ; her lips twin-cherries , of equal size ; her nose regular , and almost Grecian ; her forehead high , and delicately fair ; her eyebrows symmetrically arched ; her eyelashes , long , black , and silky , fitly corresponding with the beautiful tresses that hung among the leaves of the oak , like clusters of wandering grapes . Her eyes were yet to be seen ; but how could he doubt that their opening would be the rising of the sun , when all that surrounded their fringy portals was radiant as `` the forehead of the morning sky ? ''