The Mysteries of Udolpho

'Let the young lady join in the dance, my friend,' said the peasant,

'while we empty this flask. They are going to begin directly. Strike up!

my lads, strike up your tambourines and merry flutes!'

They sounded gaily; and the younger peasants formed themselves into a

circle, which Emily would readily have joined, had her spirits been in

unison with their mirth. Maddelina, however, tripped it lightly,

and Emily, as she looked on the happy group, lost the sense of her

misfortunes in that of a benevolent pleasure. But the pensive melancholy

of her mind returned, as she sat rather apart from the company,

listening to the mellow music, which the breeze softened as it bore it

away, and watching the moon, stealing its tremulous light over the waves

and on the woody summits of the cliffs, that wound along these Tuscan

shores. Meanwhile, Bertrand was so well pleased with his first flask, that he

very willingly commenced the attack on a second, and it was late before

Emily, not without some apprehension, returned to the cottage.

After this evening, she frequently walked with Maddelina, but was never

unattended by Bertrand; and her mind became by degrees as tranquil as

the circumstances of her situation would permit. The quiet, in which

she was suffered to live, encouraged her to hope, that she was not sent

hither with an evil design; and, had it not appeared probable, that

Valancourt was at this time an inhabitant of Udolpho, she would have

wished to remain at the cottage, till an opportunity should offer of

returning to her native country. But, concerning Montoni's motive for

sending her into Tuscany, she was more than ever perplexed, nor could

she believe that any consideration for her safety had influenced him on

this occasion.

She had been some time at the cottage, before she recollected, that, in

the hurry of leaving Udolpho, she had forgotten the papers committed

to her by her late aunt, relative to the Languedoc estates; but, though

this remembrance occasioned her much uneasiness, she had some hope,

that, in the obscure place, where they were deposited, they would escape

the detection of Montoni.