When she had come to this decision, her mind became more composed,
though she still anxiously listened, and often started at ideal sounds,
that appeared to issue from the stair-case.
Having sat in darkness for some hours, during all which time Annette did
not appear, she began to have serious apprehensions for her; but, not
daring to venture down into the castle, was compelled to remain in
uncertainty, as to the cause of this unusual absence.
Emily often stole to the stair-case door, to listen if any step
approached, but still no sound alarmed her: determining, however, to
watch, during the night, she once more rested on her dark and desolate
couch, and bathed the pillow with innocent tears. She thought of her
deceased parents and then of the absent Valancourt, and frequently
called upon their names; for the profound stillness, that now reigned,
was propitious to the musing sorrow of her mind.
While she thus remained, her ear suddenly caught the notes of distant
music, to which she listened attentively, and, soon perceiving this
to be the instrument she had formerly heard at midnight, she rose, and
stepped softly to the casement, to which the sounds appeared to come
from a lower room.
n a few moments, their soft melody was accompanied by a voice so full
of pathos, that it evidently sang not of imaginary sorrows. Its sweet
and peculiar tones she thought she had somewhere heard before; yet, if
this was not fancy, it was, at most, a very faint recollection. It
stole over her mind, amidst the anguish of her present suffering, like a
celestial strain, soothing, and re-assuring her;--'Pleasant as the gale
of spring, that sighs on the hunter's ear, when he awakens from dreams
of joy, and has heard the music of the spirits of the hill.'* (*Ossian. [A. R.])
But her emotion can scarcely be imagined, when she heard sung, with the
taste and simplicity of true feeling, one of the popular airs of her
native province, to which she had so often listened with delight, when
a child, and which she had so often heard her father repeat! To this
well-known song, never, till now, heard but in her native country, her
heart melted, while the memory of past times returned. The pleasant,
peaceful scenes of Gascony, the tenderness and goodness of her parents,
the taste and simplicity of her former life--all rose to her fancy, and
formed a picture, so sweet and glowing, so strikingly contrasted
with the scenes, the characters and the dangers, which now surrounded
her--that her mind could not bear to pause upon the retrospect, and
shrunk at the acuteness of its own sufferings.