midnight
Anxious to escape from conversation , which was both afflicting and humiliating to her , she soon returned to the deck , and resumed her station near the stern , without apprehension of cold , for no vapour rose from the water , and the air was dry and tranquil ; here , at least , the benevolence of nature allowed her the quiet which Montoni had denied her elsewhere . It was now past midnight . The stars shed a kind of twilight , that served to show the dark outline of the shores on either hand , and the grey surface of the river ; till the moon rose from behind a high palm grove , and shed her mellow lustre over the scene . The vessel glided smoothly on : amid the stillness of the hour Emily heard , now and then , the solitary voice of the barge-men on the bank , as they spoke to their horses ; while , from a remote part of the vessel , with melancholy song , The sailor sooth 'd , Beneath the trembling moon , the midnight wave . Emily , meanwhile , anticipated her reception by Mons , and Madame Quesnel ; considered what she should say on the subject of La Vallée ; and then , to withhold her mind from more anxious topics , tried to amuse herself by discriminating the faint-drawn features of the landscape , reposing in the moonlight . While her fancy thus wandered , she saw , at a distance , a building peeping between the moonlight trees , and , as the barge approached , heard voices speaking , and soon distinguished the lofty portico of a villa , overshadowed by groves of pine and sycamore , which she recollected to be the same , that had formerly been pointed out to her , as belonging to Madame Quesnel 's relative . The barge stopped at a flight of marble steps , which led up the bank to a lawn .