would have called up Annette, her aunt's woman, had her fears permitted her to rise from her chair and to cross the apartment.

These melancholy illusions at length began to disperse, and she retired to her bed, not to sleep, for that was scarcely possible, but to try, at least, to quiet her disturbed fancy, and to collect strength of spirits sufficient to bear her through the scene of the approaching morning.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Dark power! with shuddering, meek submitted thought,
Be mine to read the visions old
Which thy awakening bards have told,
And, lest they meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true."

COLLINS' ODE TO FEAR.

EMILY was recalled from a kind of slumber, into which she had at length sunk, by a quick knocking at her chamber: she started up in terror. Montoni and Count Morano instantly came to her mind; but having listened in silence for some time, and recognizing the voice of Annette, she ventured to open the door. What brings you hither so early said Emily, trembling excessively.

Dear ma'amselle! said Annette, do not look so pale. I am quite frightened to see you. Here is a fine bustle below stairs, all the servants running to and fro, and none of them fast enough! Here is a bustle, indeed, all of a sudden, and nobody knows for what!

Who is below, besides them? said Emily: Annette, do not trifle with me.

Not for the world, ma'amselle, I would not trifle for the world; but one cannot help making one's remarks: and there is the signor in such a bustle, as I never saw him before; and he has sent me to tell you, ma'am, to get ready immediately.

Good God, support me! cried Emily, almost fainting. Count Morano is below, then?

No, ma'amselle, he is not below that I know of, replied Annette; only his excellenza sent me to desire you would get ready directly to leave Venice, for that the gondolas would be at the steps of the catal in a few minutes; but I must hurry back to my lady, who is just at her wits' end, and knows not which way to turn for haste.

Explain, Annette, explain the meaning of all this before you go, said Emily, so overcome with surprise and timid hope that she had scarcely breath to speak.

Nay, ma'amselle, that is more than I can do. I only know that the signor is just come home in a very ill humor; that he has had us all called out of our beds, and tells us we are all to leave Venice immediately.

Is Count Morano to go with the signor? said Emily. And whither are we going?

I know neither, ma'am, for certain; but I heard Ludovico say something about going, after we got to Terrafirma, to the signor's castle among some mountains, that he talked of.

The Apennines! said Emily, eagerly; oh! then I have little to hope! That is the very place, ma'am. But cheer up, and do not take it so much to heart, and think what a little time you have to get ready in, and how impatient the signor is. Holy St. Mark! I hear the oars on the canal; and now they are dashing at the steps below; it is the gondola, sure enough.

Annette hastened from the room; and Emily prepared for this unexpected flight, not perceiving that any change in her situation could possibly be for the worse. She had scarcely thrown her books and clothes into her travelling trunk, when, receiving a second summons, she went down to her aunt's dressing-room, where she found Montoni impatiently reproving his wife for delay. He went out soon after, to give some farther orders to his people, and Emily then inquired the occasion of his hasty journey; but her aunt appeared to be as ignorant as herself, and to undertake the journey with more reluctance.

The family at length embarked, but neither Count Morano, nor Ca vigni, was of the party. Somewhat revived by observing this, Emily, when the gondolieri dashed their oars in the water, and put off from the steps of the portico, felt like a criminal, who receives a short reprieve. Her heart beat yet lighter, when they emerged from the canal into the ocean, and lighter still, when they skimmed past the walls of St. Mark, without having stopped to take the Count Morano.

The dawn now began to tint the horizon, and to break upon the shores of the Adriatic. Emily did not venture to ask any questions of Montoni, who sat, for some time, in gloomy silence, and then rolled himself up in his cloak, as if to sleep, while Madame Montoni did the same; but Emily, who could not sleep, undrew one of the little curtains of the gondola, and looked out upon the sea. The rising dawn now enlightened the mountain-tops of Friuli, but their lower sides, and the distant waves, that rolled at their feet, were still in deep shadow, Emily, sunk in tranquil melancholy, watched the strengthening light spreading upon the ocean, showing progressively Venice with her islets, and the shores of Italy, along which boats with their pointed lateen sails began to move.

The gondolieri were frequently hailed, at this early hour, by the market people, as they glided by towards Venice, and the Lagune soon displayed a gay scene of innumerable little barks, passing from Terrafirma with provisions. Emily gave a last look to that splendid city, but her mind was then occupied by considering the probable events that awaited her, in the scenes to which she was removing, and with conjectures concerning the motive of this sudden journey. It appeared, upon calmer consideration, that Montoni was removing her to his secluded castle, because he could there, with more probability of success, attempt to terrify her into obedience; or that, should its gloomy and sequestered scenes fail of this effect, her forced marriage with the count could there be solemnized with the secrecy which was necessary to the honor of Montoni. The little spirit which this reprieve had re

called now began to fail, and when Emily reached the shore, her mind had sunk into all its former depression.

Montoni did not embark on the Brenta, but pursued his way in carriages across the country, towards the Apennines; during which journey, his manner to Emily was so particularly severe, that this alone would have confirmed her late conjecture, had any such confirmation been necessary. Her senses were now dead to the beautiful country through which she travelled. Sometimes she was compelled to smile at the naïveté of Annette in her remarks on what she saw, and sometimes to sigh, as a scene of peculiar beauty recalled Valancourt to her thoughts, who was, indeed, seldom absent from them, and of whom she could never hope to hear in the solitude to which she was hastening.

At length the travellers began to ascend among the Apennines. The immense pine forests, which at that period overhung these mountains, and between which the road wound, excluded all view but of the cliffs aspiring above, except that, now and then, an opening through the dark woods allowed the eye a momentary glimpse of the country below. The gloom of these shades, their solitary silence, except when the breeze swept over their summits, the tremendous precipices of the mountains that came partially to the eye, each assisted to raise the solemnity of Emily's feelings into awe; she saw only images of gloomy grandeur, or of dreadful sublimity around her: other images, equally gloomy, and equally terrible, gleamed on her imagination. She was going, she scarcely knew whither, under the dominion of a person from whose arbitrary disposition she had already suffered so much, to marry, perhaps, a man who possessed neither her affection nor esteem; or to endure, beyond the hope of succor, whatever punishment revenge, and that Italian revenge, might dictate. The more she considered what might be the motive of the journey, the more she became convinced that it was for the purpose of concluding her nuptials with Count Morano, with the secrecy which her resolute resistance had made necessary to the honor, if not to the safety of Montoni. From the deep solitudes into which she was emerging, and from the gloomy castle of which she had heard some mysterious hints, her sick heart recoiled in despair, and she experienced, that, though her mind was already occupied by peculiar distress, it was still alive to the influence of a new and local circumstance; why else did she shudder at the image of this desolate castle?

As the travellers still ascended among the pine forests, steep rose over steep, the mountains seemed to multiply as they went, and what was the summit of one eminence, proved to be only the base of another. At length they reached a little plain, where the drivers stopped to rest the mules, whence a scene of such extent and magnificence opened below, as drew even from Madame Montoni a note of admiration. Emily lost, for a moment, her sorrows in the immensity of nature. Beyond the amphitheatre of mountains that stretched below, whose tops appeared as numerous almost as the waves of the sea, and whose feet were concealed by the forests-extended the campagna of Italy, where cities, and rivers, and woods, and all the glow of cultivation,

were mingled in gay confusion. The Adriatic bounded the horizon, into which the Po and the Brenta, after winding through the whole extent of the landscape, poured their fruitful waves. Emily gazed long on the splendors of the world she was quitting, of which the whole magnificence seemed thus given to her sight only to increase her regret on leaving it for her, Valancourt alone was in that world; to him alone her heart turned, and for him alone fell her bitter tears.

From this sublime scene the travellers continued to ascend among the pines, till they entered a narrow pass of the mountains, which shut out every feature of the distant country, and in its stead exhibited only tremendous crags, impending over the road, where no vestige of humanity, or even of vegetation, appeared, except here and there the trunk and scathed branches of an oak, that hung nearly headlong from the rock, into which its strong roots had fastened. This pass, which led into the heart of the Apennines, at length opened to day, and a scene of mountains stretched in long perspective, as wild as any the travellers had yet passed. Still vast pine forests hung upon their base, and crowned the ridgy precipice that rose perpendicularly from the vale, while, above, the rolling mists caught the sunbeams, and touched their cliffs with all the magical coloring of light and shade. The scene seemed perpetually changing, and its features to assume new forms, as the winding road brought them to the eye in different attitudes; while the shifting vapors, now partially concealing their minuter beauties, and now illuminating them with splendid tints, assisted the illusions of the sight.

Though the deep valleys between these mountains were, for the most part, clothed with pines, sometimes an abrupt opening presented a perspective of only barren rocks, with a cataract flashing from their summit among broken cliffs, till its waters, reaching the bottom, foamed along with louder fury, and sometimes pastoral scenes exhibited their "green delights" in the narrow vales, smiling amidst surrounding horror. There herds and flocks of goats and sheep, browsing under the shade of hanging woods, and the shepherd's little cabin, reared on the margin of a clear stream, presented a sweet picture of repose.

Wild and romantic as were these scenes, their character had far less of the sublime than had those of the Alps, which guard the entrance of Italy. Emily was often elevated, but seldom felt those emotions of indescribable awe which she had so continually experienced in her passage over the Alps.

Towards the close of the day, the road wound into a deep valley. Mountains, whose shaggy steeps appeared to be inaccessible, almost surrounded it. To the east, a vista opened, and exhibited the Apennines in their darkest horrors; and the long perspective of retiring summits rising over each other, their ridges clothed with pines, exhibited a stronger image of grandeur than any that Emily had yet seen. The sun had just sunk below the top of the mountains she was descending, whose long shadow stretched athwart the valley, but his sloping rays, shooting through an opening of the cliffs, touched with a yellow gleam the summits of the forest that hung upon the opposite steeps, and streamed in full splendor upon the towers and battlements of a

castle that spread its extensive ramparts along the brow of a precipice above. The splendor of these illuminated objects was heightened by the contrasted shade which involved the valley below.

There, said Montori, speaking for the first time in several hours, is Udolpho.

Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni's; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the Gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark-gray stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper as the thin vapor crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipt with splendor. From those, too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely, and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity; and Emily continued to gaze, till its clustering towers were alone seen rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE extent and darkness of these tall woods awakened terrific images in Emily's mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and soon after reached the castle gates, where the deep tones of the portal bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously surveyed the edifice; but the gloom that overspread it allowed her to distinguish little more than a part of its outline, with the massy wall of the ramparts, and to know that it was vast, ancient, and dreary. From the parts she saw, she judged of the heavy strength and extent of the whole. The gateway before her, leading into the courts, was of gigantic size, and was defended by two round towers, crowned by overhanging turrets, embattled, where, instead of banners, now waved long grass and wild plants, that had taken root among the mouldering stones, and which seemed to sigh, as the breeze rolled past, over the desolation around them. The towers were united by a curtain, pierced and embattled also, below which appeared the pointed arch of a huge portcullis, surmounting the gates; from these, the walls of the ramparts extended to other towers, overlooking the precipice, whose shattered outline, appearing on a gleam that lingered in the west, told of the ravages of war. Beyond these all was lost in the obscurity of evening.