The Mysteries of Udolpho

She leaned pensively on the little open casement, and in deep

thought fixed her eyes on the heaven, whose blue unclouded concave was

studded thick with stars, the worlds, perhaps, of spirits, unsphered

of mortal mould. As her eyes wandered along the boundless aether, her

thoughts rose, as before, towards the sublimity of the Deity, and to the

contemplation of futurity. No busy note of this world interrupted the

course of her mind; the merry dance had ceased, and every cottager had

retired to his home. The still air seemed scarcely to breathe upon the

woods, and, now and then, the distant sound of a solitary sheep-bell,

or of a closing casement, was all that broke on silence. At length, even

this hint of human being was heard no more. Elevated and enwrapt, while

her eyes were often wet with tears of sublime devotion and solemn awe,

she continued at the casement, till the gloom of mid-night hung over the

earth, and the planet, which La Voisin had pointed out, sunk below the

woods.

She then recollected what he had said concerning this planet, and

the mysterious music; and, as she lingered at the window, half

hoping and half fearing that it would return, her mind was led to the

remembrance of the extreme emotion her father had shewn on mention of

the Marquis La Villeroi's death, and of the fate of the Marchioness,

and she felt strongly interested concerning the remote cause of this

emotion. Her surprise and curiosity were indeed the greater, because she

did not recollect ever to have heard him mention the name of Villeroi.

No music, however, stole on the silence of the night, and Emily,

perceiving the lateness of the hour, returned to a scene of fatigue,

remembered that she was to rise early in the morning, and withdrew from

the window to repose.