'Let the young lady join in the dance, my friend,' said the peasant,
'while we empty this flask. They are going to begin directly. Strike up!
my lads, strike up your tambourines and merry flutes!'
They sounded gaily; and the younger peasants formed themselves into a
circle, which Emily would readily have joined, had her spirits been in
unison with their mirth. Maddelina, however, tripped it lightly,
and Emily, as she looked on the happy group, lost the sense of her
misfortunes in that of a benevolent pleasure. But the pensive melancholy
of her mind returned, as she sat rather apart from the company,
listening to the mellow music, which the breeze softened as it bore it
away, and watching the moon, stealing its tremulous light over the waves
and on the woody summits of the cliffs, that wound along these Tuscan
shores. Meanwhile, Bertrand was so well pleased with his first flask, that he
very willingly commenced the attack on a second, and it was late before
Emily, not without some apprehension, returned to the cottage.
After this evening, she frequently walked with Maddelina, but was never
unattended by Bertrand; and her mind became by degrees as tranquil as
the circumstances of her situation would permit. The quiet, in which
she was suffered to live, encouraged her to hope, that she was not sent
hither with an evil design; and, had it not appeared probable, that
Valancourt was at this time an inhabitant of Udolpho, she would have
wished to remain at the cottage, till an opportunity should offer of
returning to her native country. But, concerning Montoni's motive for
sending her into Tuscany, she was more than ever perplexed, nor could
she believe that any consideration for her safety had influenced him on
this occasion.
She had been some time at the cottage, before she recollected, that, in
the hurry of leaving Udolpho, she had forgotten the papers committed
to her by her late aunt, relative to the Languedoc estates; but, though
this remembrance occasioned her much uneasiness, she had some hope,
that, in the obscure place, where they were deposited, they would escape
the detection of Montoni.