the handkerchief from her face, and raised her eyes full of tears
towards heaven; soon after she dried them, and, in a calm, but tremulous
voice, began to enquire concerning some of her late father's pensioners.

'Alas-a-day!' said Theresa, as she poured out the coffee, and handed
it to her mistress, 'all that could come, have been here every day to
enquire after you and my master.' She then proceeded to tell, that
some were dead whom they had left well; and others, who were ill, had
recovered. 'And see, ma'amselle,' added Theresa, 'there is old Mary
coming up the garden now; she has looked every day these three years as
if she would die, yet she is alive still. She has seen the chaise at the
door, and knows you are come home.'

The sight of this poor old woman would have been too much for Emily, and
she begged Theresa would go and tell her, that she was too ill to see
any person that night. 'To-morrow I shall be better, perhaps; but give
her this token of my remembrance.'

Emily sat for some time, given up to sorrow. Not an object, on which her
eye glanced, but awakened some remembrance, that led immediately to the
subject of her grief. Her favourite plants, which St. Aubert had taught
her to nurse; the little drawings, that adorned the room, which his
taste had instructed her to execute; the books, that he had selected
for her use, and which they had read together; her musical instruments,
whose sounds he loved so well, and which he sometimes awakened
himself--every object gave new force to sorrow. At length, she roused
herself from this melancholy indulgence, and, summoning all her
resolution, stepped forward to go into those forlorn rooms, which,
though she dreaded to enter, she knew would yet more powerfully affect
her, if she delayed to visit them.

Having passed through the green-house, her courage for a moment forsook
her, when she opened the door of the library; and, perhaps, the shade,
which evening and the foliage of the trees near the windows threw across
the room, heightened the solemnity of her feelings on entering that
apartment, where every thing spoke of her father. There was an arm
chair, in which he used to sit; she shrunk when she observed it, for
she had so often seen him seated there, and the idea of him rose so
distinctly to her mind, that she almost fancied she saw him before her.
But she checked the illusions of a distempered imagination, though she
could not subdue a certain degree of awe,