midnight
Belles Demoiselles , the realm of maiden beauty , the home of merriment , the house of dancing , all in the tremor and glow of pleasure , suddenly sunk , with one short , wild wail of terror -- sunk , sunk , down , down , down , into the merciless , unfathomable flood of the Mississippi . Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father ; when they were only half gone , he took his bed ; and every day , and every night , old Charlie , the `` low-down , '' the `` fool , '' watched him tenderly , tended him lovingly , for the sake of his name , his misfortunes , and his broken heart . No woman 's step crossed the floor of the sick-chamber , whose western dormer-windows overpeered the dingy architecture of old Charlie 's block ; Charlie and a skilled physician , the one all interest , the other all gentleness , hope , and patience -- these only entered by the door ; but by the window came in a sweet-scented evergreen vine , transplanted from the caving bank of Belles Demoiselles . It caught the rays of sunset in its flowery net and let then softly in upon the sick man 's bed ; gathered the glancing beams of the moon at midnight , and often wakened the sleeper to look , with his mindless eyes , upon their pretty silver fragments strewn upon the floor . By and by there seemed -- there was -- a twinkling dawn of returning reason . Slowly , peacefully , with an increase unseen from day to day , the light of reason came into the eyes , and speech became coherent ; but withal there came a failing of the wrecked body , and the doctor said that monsieur was both better and worse . One evening , as Charlie sat by the vine-clad window with his fireless pipe in his hand , the old Colonel 's eyes fell full upon his own , and rested there .