ant colours of day for the
sober hue of evening. Before the cloisters, however, spread an
ancient chesnut, whose ample branches were designed to screen the full
magnificence of a scene, that might tempt the wish to worldly pleasures;
but still, beneath the dark and spreading foliage, gleamed a wide extent
of ocean, and many a passing sail; while, to the right and left, thick
woods were seen stretching along the winding shores. So much as this had
been admitted, perhaps, to give to the secluded votary an image of the
dangers and vicissitudes of life, and to console him, now that he had
renounced its pleasures, by the certainty of having escaped its evils.
As Emily walked pensively along, considering how much suffering she
might have escaped, had she become a votaress of the order, and remained
in this retirement from the time of her father's death, the vesper-bell
struck up, and the monks retired slowly toward the chapel, while she,
pursuing her way, entered the great hall, where an unusual silence
seemed to reign. The parlour too, which opened from it, she found
vacant, but, as the evening bell was sounding, she believed the nuns had
withdrawn into the chapel, and sat down to rest, for a moment, before
she returned to the chateau, where, however, the increasing gloom made
her now anxious to be.

Not many minutes had elapsed, before a nun, entering in haste, enquired
for the abbess, and was retiring, without recollecting Emily, when
she made herself known, and then learned, that a mass was going to be
performed for the soul of sister Agnes, who had been declining, for some
time, and who was now believed to be dying.

Of her sufferings the sister gave a melancholy account, and of the
horrors, into which she had frequently started, but which had now
yielded to a dejection so gloomy, that neither the prayers, in which she
was joined by the sisterhood, or the assurances of her confessor, had
power to recall her from it, or to cheer her mind even with a momentary
gleam of comfort.

To this relation Emily listened with extreme concern, and, recollecting
the frenzied manners and the expressions of horror, which she had
herself witnessed of Agnes, together with the history, that sister
Frances had communicated, her compassion was heightened to a very
painful degree. As the evening was already far advanced, Emily did not
now desire to see her, or to join in the mass, and, after leaving many
kind remembrances with the nun, for