midnight
The tale was fondly told and had made Hugh feel very homespun compared with such progenitors . But Ramsey had looked him up and down as if he must have all his forebears ' beautiful values deep hid somewhere in his inside pockets , and had wondered , as she tossed away to the pilot-house , if he was destined ever to show the father 's special gift of winning and holding the strongest and best men 's allegiance . A very mature thought for her , but she sometimes had such , and had once heard her father frankly confess that therein lay the Courteneys ' largest advantage over him , he being signally able to rule the rudest men by a more formidable rudeness , but not to command the devotion of men superior to that sort of rule . At length the stars of midnight hung overhead . The amber haze of Queen Berenice 's hair glimmered to westward . Where the river had so writhed round on itself as to be sweeping northeastward , the _ Votaress _ , midway of a short `` crossing '' from left shore to right , was pointing southwest . An old moon , fairly up , was on the larboard quarter , and in the nearest bend down-stream the faint lights of a boat recently outstripped were just being quenched by the low black willows of an island .