CHAPTER I.
Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see, My heart untravell'd still shall turn to thee.
GOLDSMITH The carriages were at the gates at an early hour; the bustle of the domestics, passing to and fro in the galleries, awakened Emily from harassing slumbers: her unquiet mind had, during the night, presented her with terrific images and obscure circumstances, concerning her affection and her future life.

She now endeavoured to chase away the impressions they had left on her fancy; but from imaginary evils she awoke to the consciousness of real ones.

Recollecting that she had parted with Valancourt, perhaps for ever, her heart sickened as memory revived.

But she tried to dismiss the dismal forebodings that crowded on her mind, and to restrain the sorrow which she could not subdue; efforts which diffused over the settled melancholy of her countenance an expression of tempered resignation, as a thin veil, thrown over the features of beauty, renders them more interesting by a partial concealment.

But Madame Montoni observed nothing in this countenance except its usual paleness, which attracted her censure.