"Hush! hush!" said Emma, taking the billetfrom the hard hand of Madeleine. "Once more I beg you, leave me! I wish to be alone!"
Madeleine took the lamp and retired slowly, wishing her young mistress many good nights and rosy dreams. Emma broke the seal of the note. As she read, her face became deadly pale, and then, as quick as thought, a crimson blush gleamed on her cheek, and her hands trembled. Tenderness, pity, love, offended pride, the weakness and dignity of woman, were all mingled in her look, changing and passing over her fine countenance like cloud-shadows. She sunk back in her chair, covering her face with her hands, as if she would hide it from herself and Heaven.
"He loves me!" said she to herself; "loves me; and is married to another, whom he loves not! and dares to tell me this! O, never,-- never,--never! And yet he is so friendless and alone in this unsympathizing world,--and an exile, and homeless! I can but pity him;--yet I hate him, and will see him no more!"
This short reverie of love and hate was brokenby the sound of a clear, mellow voice, which, in the universal stillness of the hour, seemed almost like the voice of a spirit. It was a voice, without the accompaniment of any instrument, singing those sweet lines of Goethe;
"Under the tree-tops is quiet now!
In all the woodlands hearest thou
Not a sound!
The little birds are asleep in the trees,
Wait! wait! and soon like these,
Sleepest thou!"