elf. 'Bring more light,'
said Montoni, as he entered. The servant, setting down his lamp, was
withdrawing to obey him, when Madame Montoni observing, that the evening
air of this mountainous region was cold, and that she should like a
fire, Montoni ordered that wood might be brought.

While he paced the room with thoughtful steps, and Madame Montoni sat
silently on a couch, at the upper end of it, waiting till the servant
returned, Emily was observing the singular solemnity and desolation of
the apartment, viewed, as it now was, by the glimmer of the single lamp,
placed near a large Venetian mirror, that duskily reflected the scene,
with the tall figure of Montoni passing slowly along, his arms folded,
and his countenance shaded by the plume, that waved in his hat.

From the contemplation of this scene, Emily's mind proceeded to the
apprehension of what she might suffer in it, till the remembrance of
Valancourt, far, far distant! came to her heart, and softened it into
sorrow. A heavy sigh escaped her: but, trying to conceal her tears, she
walked away to one of the high windows, that opened upon the ramparts,
below which, spread the woods she had passed in her approach to the
castle. But the night-shade sat deeply on the mountains beyond, and
their indented outline alone could be faintly traced on the horizon,
where a red streak yet glimmered in the west. The valley between was
sunk in darkness.

The scene within, upon which Emily turned on the opening of the door,
was scarcely less gloomy. The old servant, who had received them at the
gates, now entered, bending under a load of pine-branches, while two of
Montoni's Venetian servants followed with lights.

'Your excellenza is welcome to the castle,' said the old man, as he
raised himself from the hearth, where he had laid the wood: 'it has been
a lonely place a long while; but you will excuse it, Signor, knowing we
had but short notice. It is near two years, come next feast of St. Mark,
since your excellenza was within these walls.'

'You have a good memory, old Carlo,' said Montoni: 'it is there-about;
and how hast thou contrived to live so long?'

'A-well-a-day, sir, with much ado; the cold winds, that blow through the
castle in winter, are almost too much for me; and I thought sometimes of
asking your excellenza to let me leave the mountains, and go down into
the lowlands. But I don't know how it is--I am loth to quit these old
walls I have lived in so long.'