darkness.

While the lady abbess ordered refreshment, and conversed with the
Countess, Blanche withdrew to a window, the lower panes of which, being
without painting, allowed her to observe the progress of the storm over
the Mediterranean, whose dark waves, that had so lately slept, now came
boldly swelling, in long succession, to the shore, where they burst in
white foam, and threw up a high spray over the rocks. A red sulphureous
tint overspread the long line of clouds, that hung above the western
horizon, beneath whose dark skirts the sun looking out, illumined the
distant shores of Languedoc, as well as the tufted summits of the nearer
woods, and shed a partial gleam on the western waves. The rest of the
scene was in deep gloom, except where a sun-beam, darting between the
clouds, glanced on the white wings of the sea-fowl, that circled high
among them, or touched the swelling sail of a vessel, which was seen
labouring in the storm. Blanche, for some time, anxiously watched the
progress of the bark, as it threw the waves in foam around it, and, as
the lightnings flashed, looked to the opening heavens, with many a sigh
for the fate of the poor mariners.

The sun, at length, set, and the heavy clouds, which had long impended,
dropped over the splendour of his course; the vessel, however, was
yet dimly seen, and Blanche continued to observe it, till the quick
succession of flashes, lighting up the gloom of the whole horizon,
warned her to retire from the window, and she joined the Abbess, who,
having exhausted all her topics of conversation with the Countess, had
now leisure to notice her.

But their discourse was interrupted by tremendous peals of thunder;
and the bell of the monastery soon after ringing out, summoned the
inhabitants to prayer. As Blanche passed the window, she gave another
look to the ocean, where, by the momentary flash, that illumined the
vast body of the waters, she distinguished the vessel she had observed
before, amidst a sea of foam, breaking the billows, the mast now bowing
to the waves, and then rising high in air.

She sighed fervently as she gazed, and then followed the Lady Abbess
and the Countess to the chapel. Meanwhile, some of the Count's servants,
having gone by land to the chateau for carriages, returned soon after
vespers had concluded, when, the storm being somewhat abated, the Count
and his family returned home. Blanche was surprised to discover how much
the windings of the s