midnight
for I love you . '' And the angel folded his bright wings above that scanty pallet , and bent in the silent watches of the night over the boy , and filled his heart with peace , and his dreams with brightness . Six months had rolled their mighty burden of life-records into the pulseless ocean of the past . The pale stars of mid-winter were looking down with meek , seraph glances over the mighty metropolis along whose thousand thoroughfares lay the white carpet of the snow-king ; and Boreas , loosed from his ice caverns on the frozen floor of the Arctic , was holding mad revels , and howling with demoniac glee along the streets , wrapped in the pall shadows of midnight . Twelve o'clock pealed from the mighty tongue of the time-recorder , and then the white-robed angel of death knocked at the door of two young human hearts , in the great city . The tide of golden hair flowed over the white pillows of crimson-draperied couch . Shaded lamps poured their dim , silvery glances upon bright flowers and circling vines , the cunning workmanship of fingers in far-off lands , which lay among the soft groundwork of the rich carpet , while small white fingers glided caressingly among the golden hair ; and white faces , wild with sorrow , bent over the rigid features of the dying child , and tears , such only as flow from the heart 's deepest and bitterest fountains , fell upon the cold forehead and paling lips , as the lids swept back for a moment from her blue eyes , and the light from her spirit broke for the last time into them ; the lips upon which the death-seal was ready to be laid , opened ; and clear and joyous through the hushed room rang the words , `` I am coming !