Emily's pleasantest hours were passed in the pavilion of the terrace, to
which she retired, when she could steal from observation, with a book to
overcome, or a lute to indulge, her melancholy. There, as she sat
with her eyes fixed on the far-distant Pyrenees, and her thoughts on
Valancourt and the beloved scenes of Gascony, she would play the sweet
and melancholy songs of her native province--the popular songs she had
listened to from her childhood.
One evening, having excused herself from accompanying her aunt abroad,
she thus withdrew to the pavilion, with books and her lute. It was
the mild and beautiful evening of a sultry day, and the windows, which
fronted the west, opened upon all the glory of a setting sun. Its rays
illuminated, with strong splendour, the cliffs of the Pyrenees, and
touched their snowy tops with a roseate hue, that remained, long after
the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the shades of twilight had
stolen over the landscape. Emily touched her lute with that fine
melancholy expression, which came from her heart. The pensive hour and
the scene, the evening light on the Garonne, that flowed at no great
distance, and whose waves, as they passed towards La Vallee, she often
viewed with a sigh,--these united circumstances disposed her mind to
tenderness, and her thoughts were with Valancourt, of whom she had heard
nothing since her arrival at Tholouse, and now that she was removed from
him, and in uncertainty, she perceived all the interest he held in her
heart.
Before she saw Valancourt she had never met a mind and taste so
accordant with her own, and, though Madame Cheron told her much of the
arts of dissimulation, and that the elegance and propriety of thought,
which she so much admired in her lover, were assumed for the purpose of
pleasing her, she could scarcely doubt their truth. This possibility,
however, faint as it was, was sufficient to harass her mind with
anxiety, and she found, that few conditions are more painful than that
of uncertainty, as to the merit of a beloved object; an uncertainty,
which she would not have suffered, had her confidence in her own
opinions been greater.
She was awakened from her musing by the sound of horses' feet along
a road, that wound under the windows of the pavilion, and a gentleman
passed on horseback, whose resemblance to Valancourt, in air and figure,
for the twilight did not permit a view of his features, immediately
struck her. She retired hastily from the lattice, fearing to be seen,
yet wishing to observe further, while the stranger passed on without
looking up, and, when she returned to the lattice, she saw him faintly
through the twilight, winding under the high trees, that led to
Tholouse. This little incident so much disturbed her spirits, that the
temple and its scenery were no longer interesting to her, and, after
walking awhile on the terrace, she returned to the chateau.