k in the woods
near the monastery, in the solitary hours of night, and to play upon
a favourite instrument, to which she sometimes joined the delightful
melody of her voice, in the most solemn and melancholy airs of her
native country, modulated by all the energetic feeling, that dwelt in
her heart. The physician, who had attended her, recommended it to the
superior to indulge her in this whim, as the only means of soothing her
distempered fancy; and she was suffered to walk in the lonely hours of
night, attended by the servant, who had accompanied her from Italy; but,
as the indulgence transgressed against the rules of the convent, it was
kept as secret as possible; and thus the mysterious music of Laurentini
had combined with other circumstances, to produce a report, that not
only the chateau, but its neighbourhood, was haunted.

Soon after her entrance into this holy community, and before she had
shewn any symptoms of insanity there, she made a will, in which, after
bequeathing a considerable legacy to the convent, she divided the
remainder of her personal property, which her jewels made very valuable,
between the wife of Mons. Bonnac, who was an Italian lady and her
relation, and the nearest surviving relative of the late Marchioness
de Villeroi. As Emily St. Aubert was not only the nearest, but the sole
relative, this legacy descended to her, and thus explained to her the
whole mystery of her father's conduct.

The resemblance between Emily and her unfortunate aunt had frequently
been observed by Laurentini, and had occasioned the singular behaviour,
which had formerly alarmed her; but it was in the nun's dying hour, when
her conscience gave her perpetually the idea of the Marchioness, that
she became more sensible, than ever, of this likeness, and, in her
phrensy, deemed it no resemblance of the person she had injured, but the
original herself. The bold assertion, that had followed, on the recovery
of her senses, that Emily was the daughter of the Marchioness de
Villeroi, arose from a suspicion that she was so; for, knowing that her
rival, when she married the Marquis, was attached to another lover, she
had scarcely scrupled to believe, that her honour had been sacrificed,
like her own, to an unresisted passion.

Of a crime, however, to which Emily had suspected, from her phrensied
confession of murder, that she had been instrumental in the castle of
Udolpho, Laurentini was innocent; and she had herself been dec