lly, and replied, with the gallantry of a
Frenchman, 'Our cottage may be envied, sir, since you and Mademoiselle
have honoured it with your presence.' St. Aubert gave him a friendly
smile for his compliment, and sat down to a table, spread with cream,
fruit, new cheese, butter, and coffee. Emily, who had observed her
father with attention and thought he looked very ill, endeavoured to
persuade him to defer travelling till the afternoon; but he seemed very
anxious to be at home, and his anxiety he expressed repeatedly, and with
an earnestness that was unusual with him. He now said, he found himself
as well as he had been of late, and that he could bear travelling better
in the cool hour of the morning, than at any other time. But, while
he was talking with his venerable host, and thanking him for his kind
attentions, Emily observed his countenance change, and, before she could
reach him, he fell back in his chair. In a few moments he recovered from
the sudden faintness that had come over him, but felt so ill, that
he perceived himself unable to set out, and, having remained a little
while, struggling against the pressure of indisposition, he begged he
might be helped up stairs to bed. This request renewed all the terror
which Emily had suffered on the preceding evening; but, though scarcely
able to support herself, under the sudden shock it gave her, she tried
to conceal her apprehensions from St. Aubert, and gave her trembling arm
to assist him to the door of his chamber.

When he was once more in bed, he desired that Emily, who was then
weeping in her own room, might be called; and, as she came, he waved his
hand for every other person to quit the apartment. When they were alone,
he held out his hand to her, and fixed his eyes upon her countenance,
with an expression so full of tenderness and grief, that all her
fortitude forsook her, and she burst into an agony of tears. St. Aubert
seemed struggling to acquire firmness, but was still unable to speak; he
could only press her hand, and check the tears that stood trembling in
his eyes. At length he commanded his voice, 'My dear child,' said he,
trying to smile through his anguish, 'my dear Emily!'--and paused again.
He raised his eyes to heaven, as if in prayer, and then, in a firmer
tone, and with a look, in which the tenderness of the father was
dignified by the pious solemnity of the saint, he said, 'My dear child,
I would soften the painful truth I have to tell you, b