he stood lost amid the scenes of years which fancy called up, till the succession closed with the picture of his dying wife, and he started away, to forget it, if possible, at the social board.
st.aubert ordered his carriage at an early hour, and emily observed, that he was more than usually silent and dejected on the way home;but she considered this to be the effect of his visit to a place which spoke so eloquently of former times, nor suspected that he had a cause of grief which he concealed from her.
on entering the chateau she felt more depressed than ever, for she more than ever missed the presence of that dear parent, who, whenever she had been from home, used to welcome her return with smiles and fondness; now, all was silent and forsaken.
but what reason and effort may fail to do, time effects.week after week passed away, and each, as it passed, stole something from the harshness of her affliction, till it was mellowed to that tenderness which the feeling heart cherishes as sacred.st.aubert, on the contrary, visibly declined in health; though emily, who had been so constantly with him, was almost the last person who observed it.his constitution had never recovered from the late attack of the fever, and the succeeding shock it received from madame st.aubert's death had produced its present infirmity.his physician now ordered him to travel; for it was perceptible that sorrow had seized upon his nerves, weakened as they had been by the preceding illness; and variety of scene, it was probable, would, by amusing his mind, restore them to their proper tone.