St. Aubert followed a gay Parisian servant to a parlour, where sat
Mons. and Madame Quesnel, who received him with a stately politeness,
and, after a few formal words of condolement, seemed to have
forgotten that they ever had a sister.

Emily felt tears swell into her eyes, and then resentment checked
them. St. Aubert, calm and deliberate, preserved his dignity without
assuming importance, and Quesnel was depressed by his presence
without exactly knowing wherefore.

After some general conversation, St. Aubert requested to speak with
him alone; and Emily, being left with Madame Quesnel, soon learned
that a large party was invited to dine at the chateau, and was
compelled to hear that nothing which was past and irremediable ought
to prevent the festivity of the present hour.

St. Aubert, when he was told that company were expected, felt a mixed
emotion of disgust and indignation against the insensibility of
Quesnel, which prompted him to return home immediately. But he was
informed, that Madame Cheron had been asked to meet him; and, when he
looked at Emily, and considered that a time might come when the
enmity of her uncle would be prejudicial to her, he determined not to
incur it himself, by conduct which would be resented as indecorous,
by the very persons who now showed so little sense of decorum.

Among the visitors assembled at dinner were two Italian gentlemen, of
whom one was named Montoni, a distant relation of Madame Quesnel, a
man about forty, of an uncommonly handsome person, with features
manly and expressive, but whose countenance exhibited, upon the