Emily sat for some time, given up to sorrow.Not an object, on which her eye glanced, but awakened some remembrance, that led immediately to the subject of her grief.Her favourite plants, which St.Aubert had taught her to nurse; the little drawings, that adorned the room, which his taste had instructed her to execute; the books, that he had selected for her use, and which they had read together; her musical instruments, whose sounds he loved so well, and which he sometimes awakened himself--every object gave new force to sorrow.At length, she roused herself from this melancholy indulgence, and, summoning all her resolution, stepped forward to go into those forlorn rooms, which, though she dreaded to enter, she knew would yet more powerfully affect her, if she delayed to visit them.
Having passed through the green-house, her courage for a moment forsook her, when she opened the door of the library; and, perhaps, the shade, which evening and the foliage of the trees near the windows threw across the room, heightened the solemnity of her feelings on entering that apartment, where every thing spoke of her father.There was an arm chair, in which he used to sit; she shrunk when she observed it, for she had so often seen him seated there, and the idea of him rose so distinctly to her mind, that she almost fancied she saw him before her.But she checked the illusions of a distempered imagination, though she could not subdue a certain degree of awe, which now mingled with her emotions.She walked slowly to the chair, and seated herself in it; there was a reading-desk before it, on which lay a book open, as it had been left by her father.It was some moments before she recovered courage enough to examine it;and, when she looked at the open page, she immediately recollected, that St.Aubert, on the evening before his departure from the chateau, had read to her some passages from this his favourite author.The circumstance now affected her extremely; she looked at the page, wept, and looked again.To her the book appeared sacred and invaluable, and she would not have moved it, or closed the page, which he had left open, for the treasures of the Indies.Still she sat before the desk, and could not resolve to quit it, though the increasing gloom, and the profound silence of the apartment, revived a degree of painful awe.Her thoughts dwelt on the probable state of departed spirits, and she remembered the affecting conversation, which had passed between St.Aubert and La Voisin, on the night preceding his death.
As she mused she saw the door slowly open, and a rustling sound in a remote part of the room startled her.Through the dusk she thought she perceived something move.The subject she had been considering, and the present tone of her spirits, which made her imagination respond to every impression of her senses, gave her a sudden terror of something supernatural.She sat for a moment motionless, and then, her dissipated reason returning, 'What should I fear?' said she.'If the spirits of those we love ever return to us, it is in kindness.'
The silence, which again reigned, made her ashamed of her late fears, and she believed, that her imagination had deluded her, or that she had heard one of those unaccountable noises, which sometimes occur in old houses.The same sound, however, returned; and, distinguishing something moving towards her, and in the next instant press beside her into the chair, she shrieked; but her fleeting senses were instantly recalled, on perceiving that it was Manchon who sat by her, and who now licked her hands affectionately.
