“Certainly I will not,” replied Blanche, “if that is really your objection.”
“Alas! it is,” said the old woman: “we all loved her well, and I shall always grieve for her. Time runs round! it is now many years, since she died; but I remember everything, that happened then, as if it was but yesterday. Many things, that have passed of late years, are gone quite from my memory, while those so long ago, I can see as if in a glass.” She paused, but afterwards, as they walked up the gallery, added to Emily, “this young lady sometimes brings the late Marchioness to my mind; I can remember, when she looked just as blooming, and very like her, when she smiles. Poor lady! how gay she was, when she first came to the château!”
“And was she not gay, afterwards?” said Blanche.
Dorothée shook her head; and Emily observed her, with eyes strongly expressive of the interest she now felt. “Let us sit down in this window,” said the Lady Blanche, on reaching the opposite end of the gallery: “and pray, Dorothée, if it is not painful to you, tell us something more about the Marchioness. I should like to look into the glass you spoke of just now, and see a few of the circumstances, which you say often pass over it.”
“No, my lady,” replied Dorothée; “if you knew as much as I do, you would not, for you would find there a dismal train of them; I often wish I could shut them out, but they will rise to my mind. I see my dear lady on her death-bed,—her very look,—and remember all she said—it was a terrible scene!”
“Why was it so terrible?” said Emily with emotion.
“Ah, dear young lady! is not death always terrible?” replied Dorothée.
To some further enquiries of Blanche Dorothée was silent; and Emily, observing the tears in her eyes, forbore to urge the subject, and endeavoured to withdraw the attention of her young friend to some object in the gardens, where the Count, with the Countess and Monsieur Du Pont, appearing, they went down to join them.
When he perceived Emily, he advanced to meet her, and presented her to the Countess, in a manner so benign, that it recalled most powerfully to her mind the idea of her late father, and she felt more gratitude to him, than embarrassment towards the Countess, who, however, received her with one of those fascinating smiles, which her caprice sometimes allowed her to assume, and which was now the result of a conversation the Count had held with her, concerning Emily. Whatever this might be, or whatever had passed in his conversation with the lady abbess, whom he had just visited, esteem and kindness were strongly apparent in his manner, when he addressed Emily, who experienced that sweet emotion, which arises from the consciousness of possessing the approbation of the good; for to the Count’s worth she had been inclined to yield her confidence almost from the first moment, in which she had seen him.
Before she could finish her acknowledgments for the hospitality she had received, and mention of her design of going immediately to the convent, she was interrupted by an invitation to lengthen her stay at the château, which was pressed by the Count and the Countess, with an appearance of such friendly sincerity, that, though she much wished to see her old friends at the monastery, and to sigh, once more, over her father’s grave, she consented to remain a few days at the château.