endly consideration, and lamented, that
the necessity for her going first to Tholouse would render this plan
impracticable. 'But, when you are at the Baron's residence,' she added,
'you will be only a short journey from La Vallee, and I think, sir, you
will not leave the country without visiting me; it is unnecessary to say
with what pleasure I should receive you and the Lady Blanche.'

'I do not doubt it,' replied the Count, 'and I will not deny myself and
Blanche the pleasure of visiting you, if your affairs should allow you
to be at La Vallee, about the time when we can meet you there.'

When Emily said that she should hope to see the Countess also, she was
not sorry to learn that this lady was going, accompanied by Mademoiselle
Bearn, to pay a visit, for a few weeks, to a family in lower Languedoc.

The Count, after some further conversation on his intended journey and
on the arrangement of Emily's, took leave; and many days did not succeed
this visit, before a second letter from M. Quesnel informed her, that he
was then at Tholouse, that La Vallee was at liberty, and that he wished
her to set off for the former place, where he awaited her arrival, with
all possible dispatch, since his own affairs pressed him to return
to Gascony. Emily did not hesitate to obey him, and, having taken an
affecting leave of the Count's family, in which M. Du Pont was still
included, and of her friends at the convent, she set out for Tholouse,
attended by the unhappy Annette, and guarded by a steady servant of the
Count.

CHAPTER X

Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain:
Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!
PLEASURES OF MEMORY

Emily pursued her journey, without any accident, along the plains of
Languedoc towards the north-west; and, on this her return to Tholouse,
which she had last left with Madame Montoni, she thought much on the
melancholy fate of her aunt, who, but for her own imprudence, might now
have been living in happiness there! Montoni, too, often rose to her
fancy, such as she had seen him in his days of triumph, bold, spirited
and commanding; such also as she had since beheld him in his days of
vengeance; and now, only a few short months had passed--and he had
no longer the power, or the will to afflict;--he had become a clod of
earth, and his life was vanished like a shadow! Emily could have wept a