The Mysteries of Udolpho

'Pray, ma'amselle, stand beside the picture, that I may look at you

together,' said Dorothee, who, when the request was complied with,

exclaimed again at the resemblance. Emily also, as she gazed upon it,

thought that she had somewhere seen a person very like it, though she

could not now recollect who this was.

In this closet were many memorials of the departed Marchioness; a robe

and several articles of her dress were scattered upon the chairs, as if

they had just been thrown off. On the floor were a pair of black satin

slippers, and, on the dressing-table, a pair of gloves and a long black

veil, which, as Emily took it up to examine, she perceived was dropping

to pieces with age

. 'Ah!' said Dorothee, observing the veil, 'my lady's hand laid it there;

it has never been moved since!'

Emily, shuddering, immediately laid it down again. 'I well remember

seeing her take it off,' continued Dorothee, 'it was on the night before

her death, when she had returned from a little walk I had persuaded her

to take in the gardens, and she seemed refreshed by it. I told her how

much better she looked, and I remember what a languid smile she gave me;

but, alas! she little thought, or I either, that she was to die, that

night.' Dorothee wept again, and then, taking up the veil, threw it suddenly

over Emily, who shuddered to find it wrapped round her, descending even

to her feet, and, as she endeavoured to throw it off, Dorothee intreated

that she would keep it on for one moment. 'I thought,' added she, 'how

like you would look to my dear mistress in that veil;--may your life,

ma'amselle, be a happier one than hers!'

Emily, having disengaged herself from the veil, laid it again on the

dressing-table, and surveyed the closet, where every object, on which

her eye fixed, seemed to speak of the Marchioness. In a large oriel

window of painted glass, stood a table, with a silver crucifix, and a

prayer-book open; and Emily remembered with emotion what Dorothee had

mentioned concerning her custom of playing on her lute in this window,

before she observed the lute itself, lying on a corner of the table, as

if it had been carelessly placed there by the hand, that had so often

awakened it. 'This is a sad forlorn place!' said Dorothee, 'for, when my dear lady

died, I had no heart to put it to rights, or the chamber either; and my

lord never came into the rooms after, so they remain just as they did

when my lady was removed for interment.'