air; for so smoothly did the barge glide
along, that its motion was not perceivable, and the fairy city appeared
approaching to welcome the strangers. They now distinguished a female
voice, accompanied by a few instruments, singing a soft and mournful
air; and its fine expression, as sometimes it seemed pleading with the
impassioned tenderness of love, and then languishing into the cadence
of hopeless grief, declared, that it flowed from no feigned sensibility.
Ah! thought Emily, as she sighed and remembered Valancourt, those
strains come from the heart!

She looked round, with anxious enquiry; the deep twilight, that had
fallen over the scene, admitted only imperfect images to the eye, but,
at some distance on the sea, she thought she perceived a gondola: a
chorus of voices and instruments now swelled on the air--so sweet, so
solemn! it seemed like the hymn of angels descending through the silence
of night! Now it died away, and fancy almost beheld the holy choir
reascending towards heaven; then again it swelled with the breeze,
trembled awhile, and again died into silence. It brought to Emily's
recollection some lines of her late father, and she repeated in a low
voice,

Oft I hear,
Upon the silence of the midnight air,
Celestial voices swell in holy chorus
That bears the soul to heaven!

The deep stillness, that succeeded, was as expressive as the strain
that had just ceased. It was uninterrupted for several minutes, till
a general sigh seemed to release the company from their enchantment.
Emily, however, long indulged the pleasing sadness, that had stolen
upon her spirits; but the gay and busy scene that appeared, as the barge
approached St. Mark's Place, at length roused her attention. The rising
moon, which threw a shadowy light upon the terraces, and illumined
the porticos and magnificent arcades that crowned them, discovered the
various company, whose light steps, soft guitars, and softer voices,
echoed through the colonnades.

The music they heard before now passed Montoni's barge, in one of the
gondolas, of which several were seen skimming along the moon-light sea,
full of gay parties, catching the cool breeze. Most of these had music,
made sweeter by the waves over which it floated, and by the measured
sound of oars, as they dashed the sparkling tide. Emily gazed, and
listened, and thought herself in a fairy scene; even Madame Montoni was
pleased; Montoni congratulated himself on his return to