he thought
she could bear to visit the gardens, where she had so often walked with
Valancourt; and, knowing, that, if she delayed to do so, their scenes
would only affect her the more, whenever they should be viewed, she took
advantage of the present state of her mind, and entered them.

Passing hastily the gate leading from the court into the gardens, she
hurried up the great avenue, scarcely permitting her memory to dwell for
a moment on the circumstance of her having here parted with Valancourt,
and soon quitted this for other walks less interesting to her heart.
These brought her, at length, to the flight of steps, that led from the
lower garden to the terrace, on seeing which, she became agitated,
and hesitated whether to ascend, but, her resolution returning, she
proceeded.

'Ah!' said Emily, as she ascended, 'these are the same high trees, that
used to wave over the terrace, and these the same flowery thickets--the
liburnum, the wild rose, and the cerinthe--which were wont to grow
beneath them! Ah! and there, too, on that bank, are the very plants,
which Valancourt so carefully reared!--O, when last I saw them!'--she
checked the thought, but could not restrain her tears, and, after
walking slowly on for a few moments, her agitation, upon the view of
this well-known scene, increased so much, that she was obliged to stop,
and lean upon the wall of the terrace. It was a mild, and beautiful
evening. The sun was setting over the extensive landscape, to which his
beams, sloping from beneath a dark cloud, that overhung the west,
gave rich and partial colouring, and touched the tufted summits of the
groves, that rose from the garden below, with a yellow gleam. Emily and
Valancourt had often admired together this scene, at the same hour; and
it was exactly on this spot, that, on the night preceding her departure
for Italy, she had listened to his remonstrances against the journey,
and to the pleadings of passionate affection. Some observations, which
she made on the landscape, brought this to her remembrance, and with it
all the minute particulars of that conversation;--the alarming doubts he
had expressed concerning Montoni, doubts, which had since been fatally
confirmed; the reasons and entreaties he had employed to prevail with
her to consent to an immediate marriage; the tenderness of his love,
the paroxysms of this grief, and the conviction that he had repeatedly
expressed, that they should never meet again in happi