gs, and was silent; had she raised her
eyes from the ground she would have seen tears in his. He rose, and
leaned on the wall of the terrace, from which, in a few moments, he
returned to his seat, then rose again, and appeared to be greatly
agitated; while Emily found her spirits so much depressed, that several
of her attempts to renew the conversation were ineffectual. Valancourt
again sat down, but was still silent, and trembled. At length he said,
with a hesitating voice, 'This lovely scene!--I am going to leave--to
leave you--perhaps for ever! These moments may never return; I cannot
resolve to neglect, though I scarcely dare to avail myself of them. Let
me, however, without offending the delicacy of your sorrow, venture to
declare the admiration I must always feel of your goodness--O! that at
some future period I might be permitted to call it love!'

Emily's emotion would not suffer her to reply; and Valancourt, who now
ventured to look up, observing her countenance change, expected to see
her faint, and made an involuntary effort to support her, which recalled
Emily to a sense of her situation, and to an exertion of her spirits.
Valancourt did not appear to notice her indisposition, but, when he
spoke again, his voice told the tenderest love. 'I will not presume,' he
added, 'to intrude this subject longer upon your attention at this time,
but I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention, that these parting moments
would lose much of their bitterness if I might be allowed to hope the
declaration I have made would not exclude me from your presence in
future.'

Emily made another effort to overcome the confusion of her thoughts,
and to speak. She feared to trust the preference her heart acknowledged
towards Valancourt, and to give him any encouragement for hope, on so
short an acquaintance. For though in this narrow period she had observed
much that was admirable in his taste and disposition, and though these
observations had been sanctioned by the opinion of her father, they were
not sufficient testimonies of his general worth to determine her upon a
subject so infinitely important to her future happiness as that, which
now solicited her attention. Yet, though the thought of dismissing
Valancourt was so very painful to her, that she could scarcely endure to
pause upon it, the consciousness of this made her fear the partiality of
her judgment, and hesitate still more to encourage that suit, for which
her own heart too te