The Mysteries of Udolpho

Emily still gazed on the countenance, examining its features, but she

knew not where to detect the charm that captivated her attention,

and inspired sentiments of such love and pity. Dark brown hair played

carelessly along the open forehead; the nose was rather inclined to

aquiline; the lips spoke in a smile, but it was a melancholy one; the

eyes were blue, and were directed upwards with an expression of peculiar

meekness, while the soft cloud of the brow spoke of the fine sensibility

of the temper.

Emily was roused from the musing mood into which the picture had thrown

her, by the closing of the garden gate; and, on turning her eyes to

the window, she saw Valancourt coming towards the chateau. Her spirits

agitated by the subjects that had lately occupied her mind, she felt

unprepared to see him, and remained a few moments in the chamber to

recover herself. When she met him in the parlour, she was struck with the change that

appeared in his air and countenance since they had parted in Rousillon,

which twilight and the distress she suffered on the preceding evening

had prevented her from observing. But dejection and languor disappeared,

for a moment, in the smile that now enlightened his countenance, on

perceiving her. 'You see,' said he, 'I have availed myself of the

permission with which you honoured me--of bidding YOU farewell, whom I

had the happiness of meeting only yesterday.'

Emily smiled faintly, and, anxious to say something, asked if he had

been long in Gascony. 'A few days only,' replied Valancourt, while a

blush passed over his cheek. 'I engaged in a long ramble after I had the

misfortune of parting with the friends who had made my wanderings among

the Pyrenees so delightful.'

A tear came to Emily's eye, as Valancourt said this, which he observed;

and, anxious to draw off her attention from the remembrance that had

occasioned it, as well as shocked at his own thoughtlessness, he began

to speak on other subjects, expressing his admiration of the chateau,

and its prospects. Emily, who felt somewhat embarrassed how to support

a conversation, was glad of such an opportunity to continue it on

indifferent topics. They walked down to the terrace, where Valancourt

was charmed with the river scenery, and the views over the opposite

shores of Guienne.

As he leaned on the wall of the terrace, watching the rapid current of

the Garonne, 'I was a few weeks ago,' said he, 'at the source of this

noble river; I had not then the happiness of knowing you, or I should

have regretted your absence--it was a scene so exactly suited to

your taste. It rises in a part of the Pyrenees, still wilder and more

sublime, I think, than any we passed in the way to Rousillon.' He then

described its fall among the precipices of the mountains, where its

waters, augmented by the streams that descend from the snowy summits

around, rush into the Vallee d'Aran, between whose romantic heights it

foams along, pursuing its way to the north west till it emerges upon the

plains of Languedoc. Then, washing the walls of Tholouse, and turning

again to the north west, it assumes a milder character, as it fertilizes

the pastures of Gascony and Guienne, in its progress to the Bay of

Biscay.