other. Below,
you will see a hollow place.' St. Aubert paused for breath, and Emily
sat fixed in deep attention. 'Do you understand these directions, my
dear?' said he. Emily, though scarcely able to speak, assured him that
she did.

'When you return home, then,' he added with a deep sigh--

At the mention of her return home, all the melancholy circumstances,
that must attend this return, rushed upon her fancy; she burst into
convulsive grief, and St. Aubert himself, affected beyond the resistance
of the fortitude which he had, at first, summoned, wept with her.
After some moments, he composed himself. 'My dear child,' said he, 'be
comforted. When I am gone, you will not be forsaken--I leave you only in
the more immediate care of that Providence, which has never yet forsaken
me. Do not afflict me with this excess of grief; rather teach me by
your example to bear my own.' He stopped again, and Emily, the more she
endeavoured to restrain her emotion, found it the less possible to do
so.

St. Aubert, who now spoke with pain, resumed the subject. 'That closet,
my dear,--when you return home, go to it; and, beneath the board I have
described, you will find a packet of written papers. Attend to me now,
for the promise you have given particularly relates to what I shall
direct. These papers you must burn--and, solemnly I command you, WITHOUT
EXAMINING THEM.'

Emily's surprise, for a moment, overcame her grief, and she ventured to
ask, why this must be? St. Aubert replied, that, if it had been right
for him to explain his reasons, her late promise would have been
unnecessarily exacted. 'It is sufficient for you, my love, to have a
deep sense of the importance of observing me in this instance.' St.
Aubert proceeded. 'Under that board you will also find about two hundred
louis d'ors, wrapped in a silk purse; indeed, it was to secure whatever
money might be in the chateau, that this secret place was contrived,
at a time when the province was over-run by troops of men, who took
advantage of the tumults, and became plunderers.

'But I have yet another promise to receive from you, which is--that
you will never, whatever may be your future circumstances, SELL the
chateau.' St. Aubert even enjoined her, whenever she might marry, to
make it an article in the contract, that the chateau should always
be hers. He then gave her a more minute account of his present
circumstances than he had yet done, adding, 'The two hundred louis, wit