looked out upon the woods, bright with the morning sun, and inspired the pure air, her mind was soothed. The scene was filled with that cheering freshness which seems to breathe the very spirit of health, and she heard only sweet and picturesque sounds, if such an expression may be allowed the matin bell of a distant convent, the faint murmur of the sea-waves, the song of birds, and the far-off low of cattle which she saw coming slowly on between the trunks of the trees. Struck with the circumstances of imagery around her, she indulged the pensive tranquillity which they inspired; and while she leaned on her window, waiting till St. Aubert should descend to breakfast, her ideas arranged themselves in the following lines. THE FIRST HOUR OF MORNING. When every infant flower that wept in night And gives its incense to the genial air! How fresh the breeze that wafts the rich perfume, Then, doubtful gleams the mountain's hoary head, With flitting sails that partial sunbeams share. But vain the sylvan shade, the breath of May, And forms that beam through morning's dewy veil, If health no longer bid the heart be gay. O balmy hour! 'tis thine her wealth to give; Emily now heard persons moving below in the cottage, and presently the voice of Michael, who was talking to his mules, as he led them forth from a hut adjoining. As she left the room, St. Aubert, who was now risen, met her at the door, apparently as little restored by sleep as herself. She led him down stairs, to the little parlor in which they had supped the preceding night, where they found a neat breakfast set out, while the host and his daughter waited to bid them good-norrow.-I envy you this cottage, my good friends, said St. Aubert, as he met them, it is so pleasant, so quiet, and so neat; and this air that one breathesif any thing could restore lost health, it would surely be this air. La Voisin bowed gratefully, and replied, with the gallantry of a Frenchman, Our cottage may be envied, sir, since you and mademoiselle have honored it with your presence. St. Aubert gave him a friendly smile for his compliment, and sat down to a table spread with cream, fruit, new cheese, butter, and coffee. Emily, who had observed her father with attention, and thought he looked very ill, endeavored to persuade him to defer travelling till the afternoon; but he seemed very anxious to be at home, and his anxiety he expressed repeatedly, and with an earnestness that was unusual with him. He now said he found himself as well as he had been of late, and that he could bear travelling better in the cool hour of the morning than at any other time. But while he was talking with his venerable host, and thanking him for his kind attentions, Emily observed his countenance change, and before she could reach him, he fell back in his chair. In a few moments he recovered from the sudden faintness that had come over him, but felt so ill that he perceived himself unable to set out; and, having remained a little while, struggling against the pressure of indisposition, he begged he might be helped up-stairs to bed. This request renewed all the terror which Emily had suffered on the preceding evening; but though scarcely able to support herself under the sudden shock it gave her, she tried to conceal her apprehensions from St. Aubert, and gave her trembling arm to assist him to the door of his chamber. When he was once more in bed, he desired that Emily, who was then weeping in her own room, might be called; and, as she came, he waved his hand for every other person to quit the apartment. When they were alone, he held out his hand to her, and fixed his eyes upon her countenance with an expression so full of tenderness and grief that all her fortitude forsook her, and she burst into an agony of tears. St. Aubert seemed struggling to acquire firmness, but was still unable to speak; he could only press her hand, and check the tears that stood trembling in his eyes. At length he commanded his voice: My dear child, said he, trying to smile through his anguish, my dear Emily!and paused again. He raised his eyes to heaven, as if in prayer, and then, in a firmer tone, and in a look in which the tenderness of the father was dignified by the pious solemnity of the saint, he said, My dear child, I would soften the painful truth I have to tell you, but I find myself quite unequal to the act. Alas! I would, at this moment, conceal it from you, but that it would be most cruel to deceive you. It cannot be long before we must part; let us talk of it, that our thoughts and our prayers may prepare us to bear it. His voice faltered, while Emily, still weeping, pressed his hand close to her heart, which swelled with a convulsive sigh; but she could not look up. Let me not waste these moments, said St. Aubert, recovering himself: I have much to say. There is a circumstance of solemn consequence, which I have to mention, and a solemn promise to obtain from you; when this is done I shall be easier. You have observed, my dear, how anxious I am to reach home, but know not all my reasons for this. Listen to what I am going to say. Yet stay, before I say more, give me this promise-a promise made to your dying father!-St. Aubert was interrupted: Emily, struck by his last words, as if for the first time, with a conviction of his immediate danger, raised her head; her tears stopped; and gazing at him for a moment with an expression of unutterable anguish, a slight convulsion seized her, and she sunk senseless in her chair. St. Aubert's cries brought La Voisin and his daughter to the room, and they administered every means in their power to restore her, but for a considerable time without effect. When she recovered, St. Aubert was so exhausted by the scene he had witnessed that it was many minutes before he had strength to speak; he was, however, somewhat revived by a cordial which Emily gave him; and being again alone with her, he exerted himself to tranquilize her spirits, and to offer her all the comfort of which her situation admitted. She threw herself into his arms, wept on his neck; and grief made her so insensible to all he said, that he ceased to offer the alleviations which he himself could not at this moment feel, and mingled his silent tears with hers. Recalled at length to a sense of duty, she tried to spare her father from farther view of her suffering; and quitting his embrace, dried her tears, and said something which she meant for consolation. My dear Emily, replied St. Aubert, my dear child, we must look up with humble confidence to that Being who has comforted and protected us in every danger and in every affliction we have known; to whose eye every moment of our lives has been exposed; he will not, he does not forsake us now; I feel his consolations in my heart. I shall leave you, my child, still in his care; and though I depart from this world I shall still be in his presence. Nay, weep not again, my Emily. In death there is nothing new or surprising, since we all know that we are born to die; and nothing terrible to those who can confide in an allpowerful God. Had my life been spared now, after a very few years, in the course of nature, I must have resigned it; old age, with all its train of infirmity, its privations and its sorrows, would have been mine; and then at last death would have come, and called forth the tears you now shed. Rather, my child, rejoice that I am saved from such suffering, and that I am permitted to die with a mind unimpaired, and sensible of the comforts of fate and of resignation. St. Aubert paused, fatigued with speaking. Emily again endeavored to assume an air of coinposure; and in replying to what he had said, tried to soothe him with a belief that he had not spoken in vain. When he had reposed a while, he resumed the conversation. Let me return, said he, to a subject which is very near my heart. I said I had a solemn promise to receive from you; let me receive it now, before I explain the chief circumstance which it concerns; there are others, of which your peace requires that you should rest in ignorance. Promise, then, that you will perform exactly what I shall enjoin. Emily, awed by the earnest solemnity of his manner, dried her tears, that had begun again, to flow in spite of her efforts to suppress them, and looking eloquently at St. Aubert, bound herself to do whatever he should require, by a vow, at which she shuddered, yet knew not why. He proceeded: I know you too well, my Emily, to believe that you would break any promise, much less one thus solemnly given; your assurance gives me peace, and the observance of it is of the utmost importance to your tranquillity. Hear, then, what I am going to tell you. The closet which adjoins my chamber at La Vallee has a sliding board in the floor; you will know it by a remarkable knot in the wood, and by its being the next board except one to the wainscot which fronts the door. At the distance of about a yard from that end, nearer the window, you will perceive a line across it as if the plank had been joined. The way to open it is this: press your foot upon the line, the end of the board will then sink, and you may slide it with ease beneath the other. Below you will see a hollow place. St. Aubert paused for breath, and Emily sat fixed in deep these directions, my dear? said he. speak, assured him that she did. attention. Do you understand Emily, though scarcely able to When you return home, then, he added with a deep sigh At the mention of her return home, all the melancholy circumstances that must attend this return rushed upon her fancy; she burst into convulsive grief, and St. Aubert himself, affected beyond the resistance of the fortitude which he had at first summoned, wept with her. After some moments he composed himself. My dear child, said he, be comforted. When I am gone, you will not be forsaken-I leave you only in the more immediate care of that Providence which has never yet forsaken me. Do not afflict me with this excess of grief; rather teach me by your example how to bear my own. He stopped again, and Emily, the more she endeavored to restrain her emotion, found it the less possible to do so. St. Aubert, who now spoke with pain, resumed the subject. That closet, my dear,-when you return home, go to it; and beneath the board I have described you will find a packet of written papers. Attend to me now, for the promise you have given particularly relates to what I shall direct. These papers you must burn-and, solemnly I command you, without examining them. Emily's surprise, for a moment, overcame her grief, and she ventured to ask, why this must be? St. Aubert replied, that if it had been right for him to explain his reasons, her late promise would have been unnecessarily exacted. It is sufficient for you, my love, to have a deep sense of the importance of observing me in this instance. St. Aubert proceeded: Under that board, you will also find about two hundred louisd'ors wrapped in a silk purse. Indeed, it was to secure whatever money might be in the chateau, that this secret place was contrived, at a time when the province was overrun by troops of men who took advantage of the tumults and became plunderers. But I have yet another promise to receive from you, which is that you will never, whatever may be your future circumstances, sell the chateau. St. Aubert even enjoined her, whenever she might marry, to make it an article in the contract that the chateau should always be hers. He then gave her a more minute account of his present circumstances than he had yet done,-adding, The two hundred louis, with what money you will now find in my purse, is all the ready money I have to leave you. I have told you how I am circumstanced with M. Motteville, at Paris. Ah, my child! I leave you poor-but not desti. tute, he added, after a long pause. Emily could make no reply to any thing he now said, but kneeled at the bedside, with her face upon the quilt, weeping over the hand she held there. After this conversation, the mind of St. Aubert appeared to be much more at ease; but, exhausted by the effort of speaking, he sunk into a kind of doze; and Emily continued to watch and weep beside him, till a gentle tap at the chamber door roused her. It was La Voisin, come to say, that a confessor from the neighboring convent was below, ready to attend St. Aubert. Emily would not suffer her father to be disturbed, but desired that the priest might not leave the cottage. When St. X Aubert awoke from this doze his senses were confused, and it was sotue moments before he recovered them sufficiently to know that it was Emily who sat beside him. He then moved his lips, and stretched forth his hand to her; as she received which, she sunk back in her chair, overcome by the impression of death on his countenance. In a few minutes he recovered his voice, and Emily then asked, if he wished to see the confessor: he replied that he did; and when the holy father appeared she withdrew. They remained alone together above half an hour. When Emily was called in, she found St. Aubert more agitated than when she had left him, and she gazed with a slight degree of resentment at the friar, as the cause of this; who, however, looked mildly and mournfully at her, and turned away. St. Aubert, in a tremulous voice, said he wished her to join in prayer with him, and asked if La Voisin would do so to. The old man and his daughter came; they both wept, and kneeled with Emily round the bed, while the holy father read in a solemn voice the service for the dying. St. Aubert lay with a serene countenance, and seemed to join fervently in the devotion; while tears often stole from beneath his closed eyelids, and Emily's sobs more than once interrupted the service. When it was concluded, and extreme unction had been administered, the friar withdrew. St. Aubert then made a sign for La Voisin to come nearer. He gave him his hand, and was for a moment silent. At length, he said, in a trembling voice, My good friend, our acquaintance has been short, but long enough to give you an opportunity of showing me much kind attention. I cannot doubt that you will extend this kindness to my daughter when I am gone: she will have need of it. I intrust her to your care during the few weeks she will remain here. I need say no more-you know the feelings of a father, for you have children; mine would be indeed severe if I had less confidence in you. He paused. La Voisin assured him, and his tears bore testimony to his sincerity, that he would do all he could to soften her affliction, and that, if St. Aubert wished it, he would even attend her into Gascony-an offer so pleasing to St. Aubert, that he had scarcely words to acknowledgo his sense of the old man's kindness, or to tell him that he accepted it. The scene that followed between St. Aubert and Emily, affected La Voisin so much that he quitted the chamber, and she was again left alone with her father, whose spirits seemed fainting fast; but neither his senses nor his voice yet failed him; and at intervals he employed much of these last awful moments in advising his daughter as to her future conduct. Perhaps he never had thought more justly, or expressed himself more clearly than he did now. Above all, my dear Emily, said he, do not indulge in the pride of fine feeling, the romantic error of amiable minds. Those who really possess sensibility ought early to be taught that it is a dangerous quality, which is continually extracting the excess of misery or delight from every surrounding circumstance. And since, in our passage through this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently than pleasing ones, and since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute than our sense of good, we become the victims of our feelings, unless we can, in some degree, command them. I know you will say-for you are young, my Emily-I |