so I don't know, whether there are any prisoners; but it is
expected back to-night, or to-morrow, and I shall know then, perhaps.'

Emily enquired if she had ever heard the servants talk of prisoners.

'Ah ma'amselle!' said Annette archly, 'now I dare say you are thinking
of Monsieur Valancourt, and that he may have come among the armies,
which, they say, are come from our country, to fight against this state,
and that he has met with some of OUR people, and is taken captive. O
Lord! how glad I should be, if it was so!'

'Would you, indeed, be glad?' said Emily, in a tone of mournful
reproach.

'To be sure I should, ma'am,' replied Annette, 'and would not you be
glad too, to see Signor Valancourt? I don't know any chevalier I like
better, I have a very great regard for the Signor, truly.'

'Your regard for him cannot be doubted,' said Emily, 'since you wish to
see him a prisoner.'

'Why no, ma'amselle, not a prisoner either; but one must be glad to see
him, you know. And it was only the other night I dreamt--I dreamt I saw
him drive into the castle-yard all in a coach and six, and dressed out,
with a laced coat and a sword, like a lord as he is.'

Emily could not forbear smiling at Annette's ideas of Valancourt,
and repeated her enquiry, whether she had heard the servants talk of
prisoners.

'No, ma'amselle,' replied she, 'never; and lately they have done nothing
but talk of the apparition, that has been walking about of a night on
the ramparts, and that frightened the sentinels into fits. It came among
them like a flash of fire, they say, and they all fell down in a row,
till they came to themselves again; and then it was gone, and nothing to
be seen but the old castle walls; so they helped one another up again as
fast as they could. You would not believe, ma'amselle, though I shewed
you the very cannon, where it used to appear.'

'And are you, indeed, so simple, Annette,' said Emily, smiling at this
curious exaggeration of the circumstances she had witnessed, 'as to
credit these stories?'

'Credit them, ma'amselle! why all the world could not persuade me out
of them. Roberto and Sebastian and half a dozen more of them went into
fits! To be sure, there was no occasion for that; I said, myself, there
was no need of that, for, says I, when the enemy comes, what a pretty
figure they will cut, if they are to fall down in fits, all of a row!
The enemy won't be so civil, perhaps, as to walk off, like the ghost,