midnight
It is remarkable how small a part of our real life the world knows -- how little our most intimate friends know of the secret influences which have proven to be climaxes , at the turning points of our existence . There was no more beautiful woman in Alabama than Alice Westmore ; and throughout that state , where the song birds seem to develop , naturally , along with the softness of the air , and the gleam of the sunshine , and the lullaby of the Gulf 's soft breeze among the pine trees , there was no one , they say , who could sing as she sang . And she seemed to have caught it from her native mocking-birds , so natural was it . Not when they sing in the daylight , when everything is bright and joyous and singing is so easy ; but when they waken at midnight amid the _ arbor vitæ _ trees , and under the sweet , sad influence of a winter moon , pour out their half awakened notes to the star-sprays which fall in mist to blend and sparkle around the soft neck of the night . For like the star-sprays her notes were as clear ; and through them ran a sadness as of a mist of moonlight . And just as moonbeams , when they mingle with the mist , make the melancholy of night , so the memory of a dead love ran through everything Alice Westmore sang . And this made her singing divine .