one pale star

“Across the narrow, quivering line of water, the delicate budding branches of young trees were limned black against the gold, orange,—what word is there to tell the color of that morning sky! And steeped in the splendor of it hung one pale star; there was not another in the whole heaven. . . .
    She stayed there motionless upon the brink of the river till the star melted into the brightness of the day and became part of it.”

—Kate Chopin, ‘Tante Cat’rinette’, from A Night in Acadie, 1897.