Then, doubtful gleams the mountain’s hoary head,
    Seen through the parting foliage from afar;
And, farther still, the ocean’s misty bed,
    With flitting sails, that partial sunbeams share. But, vain the sylvan shade—the breath of May,
    The voice of music floating on the gale,
And forms, that beam through morning’s dewy veil,
    If health no longer bid the heart be gay! O balmy hour! ’tis thine her wealth to give,
Here spread her blush, and bid the parent live! Emily now heard persons moving below in the cottage, and presently the
voice of Michael, who was talking to his mules, as he led them forth
from a hut adjoining. As she left her room, St. Aubert, who was now
risen, met her at the door, apparently as little restored by sleep as
herself. She led him down stairs to the little parlour, in which they
had supped on the preceding night, where they found a neat breakfast
set out, while the host and his daughter waited to bid them
good-morrow. “I envy you this cottage, my good friends,” said St. Aubert, as he met
them, “it is so pleasant, so quiet, and so neat; and this air, that one
breathes—if anything could restore lost health, it would surely be this
air.”

La Voisin bowed gratefully, and replied, with the gallantry of a
Frenchman, “Our cottage may be envied, sir, since you and Mademoiselle
have honoured it with your presence.” St. Aubert gave him a friendly
smile for his compliment, and sat down to a table, spread with cream,
fruit, new cheese, butter, and coffee. Emily, who had observed her
father with attention and thought he looked very ill, endeavoured to
persuade him to defer travelling till the afternoon; but he seemed very
anxious to be at home, and his anxiety he expressed repeatedly, and
with an earnestness that was unusual with him. He now said, he found
himself as well as he had been of late, and that he could bear
travelling better in the cool hour of the morning, than at any other
time. But, while he was talking with his venerable host, and thanking
him for his kind attentions, Emily observed his countenance change,
and, before she could reach him, he fell back in his chair. In a few
moments he recovered from the sudden faintness that had come over him,
but felt so ill, that he perceived himself unable to set out, and,
having remained a little while, struggling against the pressure of
indisposition, he begged he might be helped up stairs to bed. This
request renewed all the terror which Emily had suffered on the
preceding evening; but, though scarcely able to support herself, under
the sudden shock it gave her, she tried to conceal her apprehensions
from St. Aubert, and gave her trembling arm to assist him to the door
of his chamber. When he was once more in bed, he desired that Emily, who was then
weeping in her own room, might be called; and, as she came, he waved
his hand for every other person to quit the apartment. When they were
alone, he held out his hand to her, and fixed his eyes upon her
countenance, with an expression so full of tenderness and grief, that
all her fortitude forsook her, and she burst into an agony of tears. St. Aubert seemed struggling to acquire firmness, but was still unable
to speak; he could only press her hand, and check the tears that stood
trembling in his eyes. At length he commanded his voice, “My dear
child,” said he, trying to smile through his anguish, “my dear
Emily!”—and paused again. He raised his eyes to heaven, as if in
prayer, and then, in a firmer tone, and with a look, in which the
tenderness of the father was dignified by the pious solemnity of the
saint, he said, “My dear child, I would soften the painful truth I have
to tell you, but I find myself quite unequal to the art. Alas! I would,
at this moment, conceal it from you, but that it would be most cruel to
deceive you. It cannot be long before we must part; let us talk of it,
that our thoughts and our prayers may prepare us to bear it.” His voice
faltered, while Emily, still weeping, pressed his hand close to her
heart, which swelled with a convulsive sigh, but she could not look up. “Let me not waste these moments,” said St. Aubert, recovering himself,
“I have much to say. There is a circumstance of solemn consequence,
which I have to mention, and a solemn promise to obtain from you; when
this is done I shall be easier. You have observed, my dear, how anxious
I am to reach home, but know not all my reasons for this. Listen to
what I am going to say.—Yet stay—before I say more give me this
promise, a promise made to your dying father!”—St. Aubert was
interrupted; Emily, struck by his last words, as if for the first time,
with a conviction of his immediate danger, raised her head; her tears
stopped, and, gazing at him for a moment with an expression of
unutterable anguish, a slight convulsion seized her, and she sunk
senseless in her chair. St. Aubert’s cries brought La Voisin and his
daughter to the room, and they administered every means in their power
to restore her, but, for a considerable time, without effect. When she
recovered, St. Aubert was so exhausted by the scene he had witnessed,
that it was many minutes before he had strength to speak; he was,
however, somewhat revived by a cordial, which Emily gave him; and,
being again alone with her, he exerted himself to tranquilize her
spirits, and to offer her all the comfort of which her situation
admitted. She threw herself into his arms, wept on his neck, and grief
made her so insensible to all he said, that he ceased to offer the
alleviations, which he himself could not, at this moment, feel, and
mingled his silent tears with hers. Recalled, at length, to a sense of
duty, she tried to spare her father from a farther view of her
suffering; and, quitting his embrace, dried her tears, and said
something, which she meant for consolation. “My dear Emily,” replied
St. Aubert, “my dear child, we must look up with humble confidence to
that Being, who has protected and comforted us in every danger, and in
every affliction we have known; to whose eye every moment of our lives
has been exposed; he will not, he does not, forsake us now; I feel his
consolations in my heart. I shall leave you, my child, still in his
care; and, though I depart from this world, I shall be still in his
presence. Nay, weep not again, my Emily. In death there is nothing new,
or surprising, since we all know, that we are born to die; and nothing
terrible to those, who can confide in an all-powerful God. Had my life
been spared now, after a very few years, in the course of nature, I
must have resigned it; old age, with all its train of infirmity, its
privations and its sorrows, would have been mine; and then, at last,
death would have come, and called forth the tears you now shed. Rather,
my child, rejoice, that I am saved from such suffering, and that I am
permitted to die with a mind unimpaired, and sensible of the comforts
of faith and resignation.” St. Aubert paused, fatigued with speaking.