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. 

 Perceiving her spirits unequal to the task she had assigned herself of visiting the deserted rooms of the château this night, when she left the library, she walked into the garden, and down to the terrace, that overhung the river. The sun was now set; but, under the dark branches of the almond trees, was seen the saffron glow of the west, spreading beyond the twilight of middle air. The bat flitted silently by; and, now and then, the mourning note of the nightingale was heard. The circumstances of the hour brought to her recollection some lines, which she had once heard St. Aubert recite on this very spot, and she had now a melancholy pleasure in repeating them. 

 SONNET Now the bat circles on the breeze of eve, That creeps, in shudd’ring fits, along the wave, And trembles ’mid the woods, and through the cave Whose lonely sighs the wanderer deceive; For oft, when melancholy charms his mind, He thinks the Spirit of the rock he hears, Nor listens, but with sweetly-thrilling fears, To the low, mystic murmurs of the wind! Now the bat circles, and the twilight-dew Falls silent round, and, o’er the mountain-cliff, The gleaming wave, and far-discover’d skiff, Spreads the grey veil of soft, harmonious hue. So falls o’er Grief the dew of pity’s tear Dimming her lonely visions of despair. 

 Emily, wandering on, came to St. Aubert’s favourite plane-tree, where so often, at this hour, they had sat beneath the 

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