!'

Emily, shocked by this exclamation, looked involuntarily again within
the curtains, but the blackness of the pall only appeared; while
Dorothee was compelled to support herself upon the side of the bed, and
presently tears brought her some relief.

'Ah!' said she, after she had wept awhile, 'it was here I sat on that
terrible night, and held my lady's hand, and heard her last words, and
saw all her sufferings--HERE she died in my arms!'

'Do not indulge these painful recollections,' said Emily, 'let us go.
Shew me the picture you mentioned, if it will not too much affect you.'

'It hangs in the oriel,' said Dorothee rising, and going towards a small
door near the bed's head, which she opened, and Emily followed with the
light, into the closet of the late Marchioness.

'Alas! there she is, ma'amselle,' said Dorothee, pointing to a portrait
of a lady, 'there is her very self! just as she looked when she came
first to the chateau. You see, madam, she was all blooming like you,
then--and so soon to be cut off!'

While Dorothee spoke, Emily was attentively examining the picture, which
bore a strong resemblance to the miniature, though the expression of the
countenance in each was somewhat different; but still she thought she
perceived something of that pensive melancholy in the portrait, which so
strongly characterised the miniature.

'Pray, ma'amselle, stand beside the picture, that I may look at you
together,' said Dorothee, who, when the request was complied with,
exclaimed again at the resemblance. Emily also, as she gazed upon it,
thought that she had somewhere seen a person very like it, though she
could not now recollect who this was.

In this closet were many memorials of the departed Marchioness; a robe
and several articles of her dress were scattered upon the chairs, as if
they had just been thrown off. On the floor were a pair of black satin
slippers, and, on the dressing-table, a pair of gloves and a long black
veil, which, as Emily took it up to examine, she perceived was dropping
to pieces with age.

'Ah!' said Dorothee, observing the veil, 'my lady's hand laid it there;
it has never been moved since!'

Emily, shuddering, immediately laid it down again. 'I well remember
seeing her take it off,' continued Dorothee, 'it was on the night before
her death, when she had returned from a little walk I had persuaded her
to take in the gardens, and she seemed refreshed by it. I told her how
much better s