"Next minute I noticed over my shoulder, low down in the deep blue swell of the south, where the five bright stars of the Southern Cross were gleaming nearly upright over the top of a cocoa-clump on the opposite bank, for all the world like some diamond ornament; and I pointed it out to her, though I knew by the bearings of it how far the night was gone toward the middle. Its top and bottom stars flashed out of the pure face of heaven like jewels, each fit to buy the Great Mogul ten times over. The dark fringes of her two eyes showed brown over the light in them, while it looked like the hearts in violet flowers, as she turned. 'At sea,' said I, 'we mids used to know by it when eight-bells would come, to let us go below and turn in. Soon after you lose sight of the Pole-star you rise the Southern Cross--and the men had a notion it was a brooch the Virgin Mary lost from her breast, in the daylight, when she went up to heaven! 'Twas her son gave it her, they fancied, but 'twas always to be _found_ in the dark--though, meanwhile, 'tis a sign to the Flying Dutchman, as he tries to weather the Cape, that he'll be forgiven at the day of judgment--so that's the reason it has the power of showing what's o'clock until _then_, and why the Cape is the Cape of Good Hope!' 'Yes, yes!' said she; 'in Paul and Virginia, I remember, when they were so unwilling to part, _it_----' But she stopped with a blush, as her eye met mine; and we were both so confused that, before I knew, I found myself beginning to stammer out all manner of tender words, I daresay, and to whisper her first name near her ear, she scarce seeming to mark the difference--in fact _one_ bewildered sort of look was all she gave me at the moment, as if she were listening more to the hum rising out of the woods than to me.