ne, rising amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of the sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high, gothic windows. But so low did the building stand that she found herself passing through the great gates of the lodge into the very grounds of Northanger without having discerned even an antique chimney. She knew not that she had any right to be surprised, but there was a something in this mode of approach which she certainly had not expected—to pass between lodges of a modern appearance, to find herself with such ease in the very precincts of the abbey, and driven so rapidly along a smooth-level road of fine gravel without obstacle, alarm, or solemnity of any kind, struck her as odd and inconsistent. She was not long at leisure, however, for such considerations. A sudden scud of rain driving full in her face made it impossible for her to observe anything further, and fixed all her thoughts on the welfare of her new straw bonnet. And she was actually under the abbey walls, was springing with Henry's assistance from the carriage, was beneath the shelter of the old porch, and had even passed on to the hall, where her friend and the general were waiting to welcome her, without feeling one awful foreboding of future misery to herself, or one moment's suspicion of any past scenes of horror being acted within the solemn edifice. The breeze had not seemed to waft the sides of the murdered to her, it had wafted nothing worse than a thick, misling rain, and having given a good shake to her habit, she was ready to be shown into the common drawing-room, and capable of considering where she was. An abbey! Yes, it was delightful to be really in an abbey, but she doubted, as she looked round the room, whether anything within her observation would have given her the consciousness. The furniture was in all the profusion and elegance of modern taste. The fireplace where she had expected the ample width and ponderous carving of former times was contracted to a rumford, with slabs of plain though handsome marble, and ornaments over it of the prettiest English china. The windows to which she looked with peculiar dependence, from having heard the general talk of his preserving them in their gothic form with reverential care, were yet less what her fancy had portrayed. To be sure the pointed arch was preserved, the form of them was gothic. They might even be casements, but every pane was so large, so clear, so light. To an imagination which had hoped for the smallest divisions and the heaviest stonework, for painted glass, dirt, and cobwebs, the difference was very distressing. The general, perceiving how her eye was employed, began to talk of the smallness of the room, and the simplicity of the furniture, where everything, being for daily use, pretended only to comfort, etc. Flattering himself, however, that there were some apartments in the abbey not unworthy of her notice, and was proceeding to mention the costly gilding of one in particular. When taking out his watch, he stopped short to pronounce it with surprise. This seemed the word of separation, and Catherine found herself hurried away by Miss Tilney, in such a manner as convinced her that the strictest punctuality to the family hours would be expected at Northanger. Returning through the large and lofty hall, the ascended a broad staircase of shining oak, which, after many flights, and many landing places, brought them upon a long wide gallery. On one side it had a range of doors, and it was lighted on the other by windows, which Catherine had only time to discover looked into a quadrangle, before Miss Tilney led the way into a chamber, and, scarcely staying to hope she would find it comfortable, left her with an anxious entreaty that she would make as little alteration as possible in her dress. CHAPTER XXI A moment's glance was enough to satisfy Catherine that her apartment was very unlike the one which Henry had endeavoured to alarm her by the description of. It was, by no means, unreasonably large, contained neither tapestry nor velvet. The walls were papered, the floor was carpeted, the windows were neither less perfect nor more dim than those of the drawing-room below. The furniture, though not of the latest fashion, was handsome and comfortable, and the air of the room altogether far from uncearful. Her heart instantaneously at ease on this point she resolved to lose no time in particular examination of anything as she greatly dreaded disablaging the general by any delay. Her habit, therefore, was thrown off with all possible haste, and she was preparing to unpin the linen package, which the shea's seat had conveyed for her immediate accommodation, when her eye suddenly fell on a large high chest standing back in a deep recess on one side of the fireplace. The sight of it made her start, and, forgetting everything else, she stood gazing on it in motionless wonder, while these thoughts crossed her. This is strange indeed. I did not expect such a sight as this. An immense heavy chest. What can it hold? Why should it be placed here? Pushed back, too, as if meant to be out of sight. I will look into it. Cost me what it may. I will look into it, and directly, too, by daylight. If I stay till evening my candle may go out. She advanced and examined it closely. It was of cedar curiously inlaid with some darker wood, and raised about a foot from the ground on a carved stand of the same. The lock was silver, though tarnished from age. At each end were the imperfect remains of handles also of silver, broken, perhaps prematurely by some strange violence, and on the centre of the lid was a mysterious cipher in the same metal. Catherine bent over it intently, but, without being able to distinguish anything with certainty, she could not, in whatever direction she took it, believe the last letter to be a T, and yet that it should be anything else in that house was a circumstance to raise no common degree of astonishment. If not originally theirs, by what strange events could it have fallen into the Tilney family? Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing greater, and seizing with trembling hands the hasp of the lock, she resolved, at all hazards, to satisfy herself at least as to its contents. With difficulty, for something seemed to resist her efforts, she raised the lid a few inches. But at that moment a sudden knocking at the door of the room made her starting, quit her hold, and the lid closed with alarming violence. This ill-timed intruder was Miss Tilney's maid, sent by her mistress to be of use to Miss Morland, and though Catherine immediately dismissed her, it recalled her to the sense of what she ought to be doing, and forced her in spite of her anxious desire to penetrate this mystery to proceed in her dressing without further delay. Her progress was not quick, for her thoughts and her eyes were still bent on the object so well calculated to interest and alarm, and though she dared not waste a moment upon a second attempt, she could not remain many paces from the chest. At length, however, having slipped one arm into her gown, her toilette seemed so nearly finished that the impatience of her curiosity might safely be indulged. One moment surely might be spared, and so desperate should be the exertion of her strength that, unless secured by supernatural means, the lid in one moment should be thrown back. With this spirit she sprang forward, and her confidence did not deceive her. Her resolute effort threw back the lid, and gave to her astonished eyes the view of a white cotton counterpane properly folded, reposing at one end of the chest in undisputed possession. She was gazing on it with the first blush of surprise when Miss Tilney, anxious for her friends being ready, entered the room, and, to the rising shame of having harboured for some minutes an absurd expectation, was then added the shame of being caught in so idle a search. "'That is a curious old chest is not it,' said Miss Tilney, as Catherine hastily closed it and turned away to the glass. "'It is impossible to say how many generations it has been here. How it came to be first put in this room I know not, but I have not had it moved, because I thought it might sometimes be of use in holding hats and bonnets. The worst of it is that its weight makes it difficult to open. In that corner, however, it is at least out of the way.' Catherine had no leisure for speech, being at once blushing, tying her gown, informing wise resolutions with the most violent dispatch. Miss Tilney gently hinted her fear of being late, and in half a minute they ran downstairs together in an alarm not wholly unfounded, for General Tilney was pacing the drawing-room, his watch in his hand, and having, on the very instant of their entering, pulled the bell with violence, ordered. "'Dinner to be on table, there, right there!' Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke, and sat pale and breathless in a most humble mood, concerned for his children and detesting old chests. And the General, recovering his politeness as he looked at her, spent the rest of his time in scolding his daughter for so foolishly hurrying her fair friend, who was absolutely out of breath from haste, when there was not the least occasion for hurry in the world. But Catherine could not at all get over the double distress of having involved her friend in a lecture, and been a great simpleton herself, till they were happily seated at the dinner table, when the General's complacent smiles and a good appetite of her own restored her to peace. The dining-parlor was a noble-room, suitable in its dimensions to a much larger drawing-room, than the one in common use, and fitted up in a style of luxury and expense which was almost lost on the unpracticed eye of Catherine, who saw a little more than its spaciousness and the number of their attendance. Of the former she spoke aloud her admiration, and the General, with a very gracious countenance, acknowledged that— It was by no means an ill-sized room. And further confessed that— There was careless on such subjects as most people. He didn't look upon a tolerably large-eating room as one of the necessaries of life. He supposed, however, that— She must have been used to much better-sized apartments at Mr. Allen's. No, indeed, was Catherine's honest assurance. Mr. Allen's dining-parlor was not half so large, and she had never seen so large a room as this in her life. The General's good humour increased. Why, as he had such a room, he thought it would be simple not to make use of them, but, upon his honour, he believed there might be more comfort in rooms of any half of their size. Mr. Allen's house, he was sure, must be exactly the true size for rational happiness. The evening passed without any further disturbance, and in the occasional absence of General Tillney, with much positive cheerfulness. It was only in his presence that Catherine felt the smallest fatigue from her journey, and even then, even in moments of linger or restraint, a sense of general happiness preponderated, and she could think of her friends in Bath without one wish of being with them. The night was stormy, the wind had been rising at intervals the whole afternoon, and by the time the party broke up it blew and rained violently. Catherine, as she crossed the hall, listened to the tempest with sensations of awe, and when she heard it raid round a corner of the ancient building, and closed with sudden fury a distant door, felt for the first time that she was really in an abbey. Yes, these were characteristic sounds. They brought to her recollection a countless variety of dreadful situations and horrid scenes which such buildings had witnessed and such storms ushered in, and most heartily did she rejoice in the happier circumstances attending her entrance within walls so solemn. She had nothing to dread from midnight assassins or drunken gallants. Henry had certainly been only ingest in what he had told her that morning. In a house so furnished and so guarded she could have nothing to explore or to suffer, and might go to her bedroom as securely as if it had been her own chamber at Fulerton. Thus wisely fortifying her mind, as she proceeded upstairs, she was enabled, especially on perceiving that Miss Tilney slept only two doors from her, to enter her room with a tolerably stout heart, and her spirits were immediately assisted by the cheerful blaze of wood fire. How much better is this? said she as she walked to the fender. How much better to find a fire ready lit than to have to wait shivering in the cold till all the family are in bed, as so many poor girls have been obliged to do, and then to have a faithful owed servant frightening one by coming in with a faggot. How glad I am that North Anger is what it is. If it had been like some other places, I do not know that, and such a night as this, I could have answered for my courage, but now to be sure there is nothing to alarm one. She looked round the room. The window-curtain seemed in motion. It could be nothing but the violence of the wind penetrating through the divisions of the shutters, and she stepped boldly forward, carelessly humming a tune, to assure herself of its being so. Peeped courageously behind each curtain, saw nothing on either low window-seat to scare her, and on placing a hand against the shutter felt the strongest conviction of the wind's force. A glance at the old chest as she turned away from this examination was not without its use. She scorned the causeless fears of an idle fancy, and began with a most happy indifference to prepare herself for bed. She should take her time. She should not hurry herself. She did not care if she were the last person up in the house. But she would not make up her fire, that would seem cowardly, as if she wished for the protection of light after she were in bed. The fire therefore died away, and Catherine, having spent the best part of an hour in her arrangements, was beginning to think of stepping into bed, when on giving a parting glance round the room she was struck by the appearance of a high old-fashioned black cabinet, which, though in a situation conspicuous enough, had never caught her notice before. Henry's words, his description of the ebony cabinet which was to escape her observation at first, immediately rushed across her, and though there could be nothing really in it, there was something whimsical. It was certainly a very remarkable coincidence. She took her candle, and looked closely at the cabinet. It was not absolutely ebony and gold, but it was Japan, black and yellow Japan, of the handsomest kind, and as she held her candle, the yellow had very much the effect of gold. The key was in the door, and she had a strange fancy to look into it. Not, however, with the smallest expectation of finding anything. But it was so very odd, after what Henry had said. In short, she could not sleep till she had examined it. So, placing the candle with great caution on a chair, she seized the key with a very tremulous hand and tried to turn it. But it resisted her utmost strength. Alarmed, but not discouraged, she tried it another way. A bolt flew, and she believed herself successful. But how strangely mysterious! The door was still immovable. She paused a moment in breathless wonder. The wind roared down the chimney, the rain beat in torrents against the windows, and everything seemed to speak the awfulness of her situation. To retire to bed, however, unsatisfied on such a point would be in vain, since sleep must be impossible with the consciousness of a cabinet so mysteriously closed in her immediate vicinity. Again, therefore, she applied herself to the key, and after moving it in every possible way for some instance, with the determined celerity of Hope's last effort, the door suddenly yielded to her hand. Her heart leaped with exultation at such a victory, and having thrown open each folding door, the second being secured only by bolts of less wonderful construction than the lock, though in that her eye could not discern anything unusual, a double range of small drawers appeared in view, with some larger drawers above and below them, and in the centre a small door, closed also with a lock and key secured in all probability a cavity of importance. Catherine's heart beat quick, but her courage did not fail her. With a cheek flushed by Hope and an eye straining with curiosity, her fingers grasped the handle of a drawer and drew it forth. It was entirely empty. With less alarm and greater eagerness she seized a second, a third, a fourth. Each was equally empty. Not one was left unsearched, and in not one was anything found. Well read in the art of concealing a treasure, the possibility of forced linings to the drawers did not escape her, and she felled round each with anxious acuteness in vain. The place in the middle alone remained now unexplored, and those she had— Never from the first had the smallest idea of finding anything in any part of the cabinet, and was not the least as appointed at her ill success thus far. It would be foolish not to examine it thoroughly while she was about it. It was some time, however, before she could unfasten the door—the same difficulty occurring in the management of this inner lock as of the outer—but at length it did open, and not vain, as hitherto was her search. Her quick eyes directly fell on a roll of paper, pushed back into the further part of the cavity, apparently for concealment, and her feelings at that moment were indescribable. Her heart fluttered, her knees trembled, and her cheeks grew pale. She seized, with an unsteady hand, the precious manuscript, for half a glance suffice to ascertain written characters, and while she acknowledged, with awful sensations, this striking exemplification of what Henry had foretold resolved instantly to peruse every line before she attempted to rest. The dimness of the light her candle omitted made her turn to it with alarm, but there was no danger of its sudden extinction. It had yet some hours to burn, and that she might not have any greater difficulty in distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date might occasion, she hastily snuffed it. Alas! it was snuffed and extinguished in one. A lamp could not have expired with more awful effect. Catherine, for a few moments, was motionless with horror. It was done completely. Not a remnant of light in the wick could give hope to the rekindling breath. Darkness, impenetrable, and immovable filled the room. A violent gust of wind, rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment. Catherine trampled from head to foot. In the pause which succeeded, a sound like receding footsteps and the closing of a distant door struck on her affrighted ear. Human nature could support no more. A cold sweat stood on her forehead. The manuscript fell from her hand, and groping her way to the bed, she jumped hastily in and sought some suspension of agony by creeping far underneath the clothes. To close her eyes in sleep that night, she felt must be entirely out of the question. With a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings in every way so agitated, repose must be absolutely impossible. The storm too abroad so dreadful. She had not been used to feel alarm from wind, but now every blast seemed fraught with awful intelligence. The manuscript so wonderfully found, so wonderfully accomplishing the morning's prediction. How was it to be accounted for? What could it contain? To whom could it relate? By what means could it have been so long concealed, and how singularly strange that it should fall to her lot to discover it? Till she had made herself mistress of its contents, however, she could have neither repose nor comfort, and with the sun's first rays she was determined to peruse it. But many were the tedious hours which must yet intervene. She shuddered, tossed about in her bed, and envied every quiet sleeper. The storm still raged, and various were the noises, more terrific even than the wind which struck at intervals on her startled ear. The very curtains of her bed seemed at one moment in motion, and at another the lock of her door was agitated as if by the attempt of somebody to enter. Hollow murmurs seemed to creep along the gallery, and more than once her blood was chilled by the sound of distant moans. Hour after hour passed away, and the weary Catherine had heard three proclaimed by all the clocks in the house before the tempest subsided, or she unknowingly fell fast asleep. CHAPTER XXII The housemaids folding back her window-shutters at eight o'clock the next day was the sound which first roused Catherine, and she opened her eyes, wondering that they could ever have been closed on objects of cheerfulness.  Instantaneously, with the consciousness of existence, returned her recollection of the manuscript, and springing from the bed in the very moment of the maids going away, she eagerly collected every scattered sheet which had burst from the roll on its falling to the ground, and flew back to enjoy the luxury of their perusal on her pillow. She now plainly saw that she must not expect a manuscript of equal length with the generality of what she had shattered over in books, for the roll, seeming to consist entirely of small disjointed sheets, was altogether but of trifling size, and much less than she had supposed it to be at first. Her greedy eye glanced rapidly over a page. She started at its import. Could it be possible, or did not her senses play her faults? An inventory of linen. In course, and modern character seemed all that was before her. If the evidence of sight might be trusted, she held a washing-bill in her hand. She seized another sheet, and saw the same articles with little variation.  Shirts, stockings, cravats, and waste-cuts faced her in each. Two others, penned by the same hand, marked an expenditure scarcely more interesting. In letters, hair-powder, shoestring, and breeches bore. And the larger sheet, which had enclosed the rest, seemed by its first cramp line. To poultice, chestnut mare! A farrier's bill! Such was the collection of papers, left, perhaps, as she could then suppose, by the negligence of a servant in the place when she had taken them, which had filled her with expectation and alarm, and robbed her of half a night's rest. She felt humbled to the dust. Could not the adventure of the chest have taught her wisdom? A corner of it, catching her eye, as she lay, seemed to rise up in judgment against her. Nothing could now be clearer than the absurdity of her recent fancies. To suppose that a manuscript of many generations back could have remained undiscovered in a room such as that, so modern, so habitable, or that she should be the first to possess the skill of unlocking a cabinet, the key of which was open to war. How could she have so imposed on herself? Heaven forbid that Henry Tilney should ever know her folly. And it was in a great measure, his own doing, for had not the cabinet appeared so exactly to agree with his description of her adventures, she should never have felt the smallest curiosity about it. This was the only comfort that occurred. Impatient to get rid of those hateful evidences of her folly, those detestable papers then scattered over the bed, she rose directly, and folding them up as nearly as possible in the same shape as before, returned them to the same spot within the cabinet, with a very hearty wish that no untoward accident might ever bring them forward again to disgrace her, even with herself. Why the locks should have been so difficult to open, however, was still something remarkable, for she could now manage them with perfect ease. In this there was surely something mysterious, and she indulged in the flattering suggestion for half a minute till the possibility of the doors having been at first unlocked, and of being herself its fastener darted into her head and cost her another blush. She got away as soon as she could from a room in which her conduct produced such unpleasant reflections, and found her way with all speed to the breakfast-parner, as it had been pointed out to her by Miss Tilney the evening before. Henry was alone in it, and his immediate hope of her having been undisturbed by the tempest, with an arch-reference to the character of the building they inhabited, was rather distressing. For the world she would not have her weakness suspected, and yet, unequal to an absolute falsehood, was constrained to acknowledge that the wind had kept her awake a little. But we have a charming morning after it. She added, desiring to get rid of the subject. And storms and sleeplessness are nothing when they are over. What beautiful hyacinths! I have just learned to love a hyacinth. And how might you learn, by accident or argument? Your sister taught me, I cannot tell how. Mrs. Allen used to take pains, year after year, to make me like them, but I never could till I saw them the other day in Milsom Street. I am naturally indifferent about flowers. But now you love the hyacinth. So much the better. You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible. Besides, a taste for flowers is always desirable in your sex, as a means of getting you out of doors, and tempting you to more frequent exercise than you would otherwise take. And though the love of a hyacinth may be rather domestic, who can tell? The sentiment once raised, but you may in time come to love a rose. But I do not want any such pursuit to get me out of doors. The pleasure of walking and breathing fresh air is enough for me, and in fine weather I am out more than half my time. Mama says I am never within. At any rate, however, I am pleased that you have learned to love a hyacinth. The mere habit of learning to love is the thing, and a teachableness of disposition in the young lady is a great blessing. Has my sister a pleasant mode of instruction? Catherine was saved the embarrassment of attempting an answer by the entrance of the General, whose smiling compliments announced a happy state of mind, but whose gentle hint of sympathetic early rising did not advance her composure. The elegance of the breakfast set forced itself on Catherine's notice when they were seated at table, and lucidly it had been the General's choice. He was enchanted by her apprabation of his taste, confested to be neat and simple, though right to encourage the manufacture of his country. Unto his part, to his uncritical palate, the tea was as well flavoured from the clay of Staffordshire as from that of Dresden or Cyve. But this was quite an old set, purchased two years ago. The manufacture was much improved since that time. He had seen some beautiful specimens when lost in town, and had he not been perfectly without vanity of that kind, might have been tempted to order a new set. He trusted, however, that an opportunity might air along a car of selectly one, though not for himself. Catherine was probably the only one of the party who did not understand him. Shortly after breakfast, Henry left them for Woodstone, where business required, and would keep him two or three days. They all attended in the hall to see him mount his horse, and immediately on re-entering the breakfast-room, Catherine walked to a window in the hope of catching another glimpse of his figure. This is a somewhat heavy curl upon your brother's fortitude. Observed the General to Elinor. Woodstone will make but a somber appearance today. Is it a pretty place? asked Catherine. What say you, Elinor? Speak your opinion, for ladies can best tell the taste of ladies in regard to places as well as men. I think it would be acknowledged by the most impartial eye to have many recommendations. The house stands among fine midders facing the southeast, with an excellent kitchen garden in the same aspect. The walls surrounding which I built and stocked myself about ten years ago, for the benefit of my son. It is a family living, Miss Marland, and the property in the place being chiefly my own. You may believe I take care it shall not be a bad one. Did Henry's income depend solely on this living he would not be ill-provided for? Perhaps it makes him odd that with only two younger children, I should take any profession necessary for him, and certainly there are moments when we can all wish him disengaged from every type of business. But though I may not exactly make converts of you, young ladies, I am sure your father, Miss Marland, would agree with me in thinking it expedient to give every young man some employment. The money is nothing, it is not an object, but employment is the thing. Even Frederick, my eldest son, you see, who will perhaps inherit as considerable a loaded property as any private man in the country, has his profession. The imposing effect of this last argument was equal to his wishes. The silence of the lady proved it to be unanswerable. Something had been said the evening before of her being shown over the house, and he now offered himself as her conductor, and though Catherine had hoped to explore it accompanied only by his daughter, it was a proposal of too much happiness in itself, under any circumstances, not to be gladly accepted, for she had been already eighteen hours in the abbey, and had seen only a few of its rooms. The netting-box, just leisurely drawn forth, was closed with joyful haste, and she was ready to attend him in a moment. And when they had gone over the house, he brumsed himself moreover the pleasure of accompanying her into the chabris and garden. She curtsied her acquiescence. But perhaps it might be more agreeable to her to make those her fast object. The weather was at present favourable, and at this time of year the uncertainty was very great of its continuing say. Which would she prefer? He was equally at her service, which did his daughter think would most accord with her fair friend's wishes. But he thought he could discern. Yes, he certainly read in Miss Marlin's eyes a judicious desire of making use of the present smiling weather. But when did she judge a miss? The abbey would be always safe and dry. He yielded implicitly, and would fetch his hat and attend them in a moment. He left the room, and Catherine, with a disappointed, anxious face, began to speak of her unwillingness that he should be taking them out of doors against his own inclination under a mistaken idea of pleasing her. But she was stopped by Miss Tilney saying with a little confusion. I believe it will be wisest to take the morning while it is so fine, and do not be uneasy in my father's account. He always walks out at this time of day. Catherine did not exactly know how this was to be understood. Why was Miss Tilney embarrassed? Could there be any unwillingness on the general's side to show her over at the abbey? The proposal was his own. And was it not odd that he should always take his walk so early? Neither her father nor Mr. Allen did so. It was certainly very provoking. She was all impatient to see the house and would scarcely any curiosity about the grounds, if Henry had been with them indeed. But now she should not know what was picturesque when she saw it. Such were her thoughts, but she kept them to herself and put on her bonnet in patient discontent. She was struck, however, beyond her expectation by the grandeur of the abbey as she saw it for the first time from the lawn. The whole building enclosed a large court, and two sides of the quadrangle, rich in gothic ornaments, stood forward for admiration. The remainder was shot off by knolls of old trees or luxuriant plantations, and the steep woody hills rising behind it to give it shelter were beautiful even in the leafless month of March. Catherine had seen nothing to compare with it, and her feelings of delight were so strong, that, without waiting for any better authority, she boldly burst forth in wonder and praise. The general listened with assenting gratitude, and it seemed as if his own estimation of northinger had waited unfixed till that hour. The kitchen garden was to be next admired, and he led the way to it across a small portion of the park. The number of acres contained in this garden was such as Catherine could not listen to without dismay, being more than double the extent of all Mr. Allen's, as well as her father's, including Churchard and Orchard. The walls seemed countless in number, endless in length, a vintage of hot houses seemed to arise among them, and a whole parish to be at work within the enclosure. The general was flattered by her looks of surprise, which told him almost as plainly, as he soon forced her to tell him in words that she'd never seen any gardens at all equal to them before. And then he modestly owned that. Without any ambition that sought himself, without any solicitude about it, he did believe them to be unrivaled in the kingdom. If he had a hobby horse, it was that. He loved a garden. Though careless enough in most matters of eating, he loved good fruit, or if he did not, his friends and children did. There were great vexations, however, attending such a garden as hers. The utmost care could not always secure the most valuable fruits. The pinery had yielded only one hundred in the last year. Mr. Allen, he surpassed, must feel his inconveniences as well as himself. No, not at all. Mr. Allen did not care about the garden and never went into it. With a triumphant smile of self-satisfaction, the general wished he could do the same, for he never entered his without being vexed in some way or other, by its falling short of his plan. How were Mr. Allen's succession houses worked? Describing the nature of his own as they entered them. Mr. Allen had only one small hot house, which Mrs. Allen had the use of for hot plants in the winter, and there was a fire in it now and then. He is a happy man, said the general with a look of very happy contempt. Having taken her into every division and led her under every wall, till she was hardly weary of seeing and wondering, he suffered the girls at last to seize the advantage of an outer door, and then expressing his wish to examine the effect of some recent alterations about the tea-house, proposed it as no unpleasant extension of their walk if Miss Moreland were not tired. But where are you doing, Eleanor? Why do you choose that cold, damp path to it? Miss Moreland will get wet. Our best way is across the park. This is so favourite to walk of mine, said Miss Tilney, that I always think it the best and nearest way, but perhaps it may be damp. It was a narrow winding path through a thick grove of old Scotch furs, and Catherine, struck by its gloomy aspect and eager to enter it, could not even by the general's disapprobation be kept from stepping forward. He perceived her inclination, and having again urged the plea of health in vain, was too polite to make further opposition. He excused himself, however, from attending them. The rays of the sun were not too cheerful for him, and he would meet them by another course. She turned away, and Catherine was shocked to find how much her spirits were relieved by the separation. The shock, however, being less real than the relief, offered it no injury, and she began to talk with easy gaiety of the delightful melancholy which such a grove inspired. I am particularly fond of this spot, said her companion with a sigh. It was my mother's favourite walk. Catherine had never heard Mrs. Tilney mentioned in the family before, and the interest excited by this tender remembrance shown itself directly in her altered countenance, and in the attentive pause with which she waited for something more. I used to walk here so often with her, added Eleanor, though I never loved it then, as I have loved it since. At that time, indeed, I used to wonder at her choice, but her memory endears it now. And ought it not, reflected Catherine, to endure it to her husband, yet the general would not enter it. Miss Tilney, continuing silent, she ventured to say, Her death must have been a great affliction. A great and increasing one. Replied the other in a low voice. I was only thirteen when it happened, and though I felt my loss perhaps as strongly as one so young could feel it, I did not, I could not, then know what a loss it was. She stopped for a moment, and then added with great firmness. I have no sister, you know, and though Henry, though my brothers are very affectionate, and Henry is a great deal here, which I am most thankful for, it is impossible for me not to be often solitary. To be sure you must miss him very much. A mother would have been always present. A mother would have been a constant friend. Her influence would have been beyond all other. Was she a very charming woman? Was she handsome? Was there any picture of her in the abbey? And why had she been so partial to that grove? Was it from dejection of spirits? Were questions now eagerly poured forth, the first three received a ready affirmative. The two others were passed by, and Catherine's interest in the deceased Mrs. Tilly augmented with every question whether answered or not. Of her unhappiness in marriage, she felt persuaded. General certainly had been an unkind husband. He did not love her walk. Could he therefore have loved her? And besides, handsome as he was, there was something in the turn of his features which spoke his not having behaved well to her. Her picture, I suppose. Blushing at the consummate art of her own question. Hangs in your father's room. No. It was intended for the drawing-room, but my father was dissatisfied with the painting, and for some time it had no place. Soon after her death I obtained it for my own, and hung it in my bed-chamber, where I shall be happy to show it to you. It is very like. Here was another proof, a portrait very like of a departed wife not valued by the husband. He must have been dreadfully cruel to her. Catherine attempted no longer to hide from herself the nature of the feelings, which, in spite of all his attentions, he had previously excited, and what had been terror and dislike before was now absolute aversion. Yes, aversion. His cruelty to such a charming woman made him odious to her. She had often read of such characters. Characters which Mr. Allen had been used to call unnatural and overdrawn, but here was proof positive of the contrary. She had just settled this point when the end of the path brought them directly upon the general, and, in spite of all her virtuous indignation, she found herself again obliged to walk with him, listen to him, and even to smile when he smiled. Being no longer able, however, to receive pleasure from the surrounding objects, she soon began to walk with lassitude. The general perceived it, and with a concern for her health, which seemed to approach her for her opinion of him, was most urgent for. Returning with his daughter to the house, he would follow them in a quarter of an hour. Again they parted, but Eleanor was called back in half a minute to receive a strict charge against taking her friend round the abbey till his return. This second instance of his anxiety to delay what she so much wished for struck Catherine as very remarkable. An hour passed away before the general came in, spent on the part of his young guest, in no very favourable consideration of his character. This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not speak a mind at ease, or a conscious void of reproach. At length he appeared, and whatever might have been the gloom of his meditations, he could still smile with them. Miss Tilney, understanding in part her friend's curiosity to see the house, soon revived the subject, and her father being, contrary to Catherine's expectations, unprovided with any pretense for further delay, beyond that of stopping five minutes to order refreshments to be in the room by their return, was at last ready to escort them. They set forward, and with a grand ear of air, a dignified step which caught the eye, but could not shake the doubts of the well-read Catherine, he led the way across the hall, through the common drawing-room, and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent, both in size and furniture. The real drawing-room, used only with company of consequence. It was— Very noble, very grand, very charming. Was all that Catherine had to say, for her indiscriminating eye scarcely discerned the colour of the satin, and all minuteness of praise, all praise that had much meaning was supplied by the general. The costliness or elegance of any rooms fitting up could be nothing to her. She cared for no furniture of a more modern date than the fifteenth century. When the general had satisfied his own curiosity, in a close examination of every well-known ornament, they proceeded into the library, an apartment in its way of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection of books on which unhumble man might have looked with pride. Catherine, heard, admired, and wondered, with more genuine feeling than before, gathered all that she could from the storehouse of knowledge, by running over the titles of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed, but suites of apartments did not spring up with her wishes. Large as was the building, she had already visited the greatest part, though on being told that with the addition of the kitchen, the six or seven rooms she had now seen surrounded three sides of the court, she could scarcely believe it, or overcome the suspicion of there being many chambers secreted. It was some relief, however, that they were to return to the rooms in common use, by passing through a few of less importance, looking into the court, which, with occasional passages, not wholly unindricate, connected the different sides, and she was further soothed in her progress, by being told that— She was ready, what had once been a cloister. Having traces of cells pointed out, and observing several doors that were neither opened nor explained to her, by finding herself successively in a billiard room, and in the general's private apartment, without comprehending their connection, or being able to turn a right when she left them, and lastly by passing through a dark little room, owning Henry's authority, and strewed with his litter of books, guns, and great-coats. From the dining-room, of which, though already seen, and always to be seen at five o'clock, the general could not forego the pleasure of pacing out the length, for the more certain information of Miss Moreland, as to what she neither doubted nor cared for. They proceeded by quick communication to the kitchen. The ancient kitchen of the convent, rich in the massy walls and smoke of former days, and in the stoves and hot closets of the present, the general's improving hand had not loitered here. Every modern invention to facilitate the labour of the cooks had been adopted within theirs, their spacious theatre, and when the genius of others had failed, his own had often produced the perfection wanted. His endowments of this spot alone might at any time have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent. With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the abbey, the fourth side of the quadrangle having, on account of its decaying state, been removed by the general's father, and the present erected in its place. All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was not only new, but declared itself to be so, intended only for offices, and enclosed behind by stable yards. No uniformity of architecture had been thought necessary. Catherine could have raved at the hand which had swept away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest, for the purposes of mere domestic economy, and would willingly have been spared the mortification of a walk through scenes so fallen, had the general allowed it, but— If he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement of his offices. And he was convinced that— To a mind like Miss Morland's, a view of the accommodations and comforts, by which the labours of her inferiors were softened, must always be gratifying. He should make no apology for leading her on. They took a slight survey of all, and Catherine was impressed beyond her expectation by their multiplicity and their convenience. The purposes for which a few shapeless pantries and a comfortless scullery were deemed sufficient at Fullerton were here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy. The number of servants continually appearing did not strike her less than the number of their offices. Wherever they went, some patented girl stopped to curtey, or some footman in disabil sneaked off, yet this was an abbey. How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangements from such, as she had read about, from abbeys and to castles, in which, though certainly larger than Northinger, all the dirty work of the house was to be done by two pair of female hands the utmost. How they could get through it all had often amazed Mrs. Allen, and when Catherine saw what was necessary here she began to be amazed herself. They returned to the whore, that the chief staircase might be ascended, and the beauty of its wood and ornaments of rich carving might be pointed out. Having gained the top they turned in an opposite direction from the gallery in which her room lay, and shortly entered one on the same plan, but superior in length and breadth. She was here shown successively into three large bed chambers, with their dressing rooms most completely and handsomely fitted up, everything that money in taste could do to give comfort and elegance to apartments, had been bestowed on these, and being furnished within the last five years they were perfect in all that would be generally pleasing, and wanting in all that could give pleasure to Catherine. As they were surveying the last, after slightly naming a few of the distinguished characters by whom they had at times been honoured, turned with a smiling countenance to Catherine, and ventured to— Hey, that henceforward some of their earliest tenants might be our friends from Fullerton. She felt the unexpected compliment, and deeply regretted the impossibility of thinking well of a man so kindly disposed towards herself, and so full of civility to all her family. The gallery was terminated by folding doors which Miss Tilney, advancing, had thrown open, and passed through, and seemed on the point of doing the same by the first door to the left, in another long reach of gallery, when the general, coming forwards, called her hastily, and, as Catherine thought rather angrily back, demanding, whether she were going, and what was there more to be seen? Had not Miss Morland already seen all that could be worth her notice? And did she not suppose her friend might be glad of some refreshment after so much exercise? Miss Tilney drew back directly, and the heavy doors were closed upon the mortified Catherine, who, having seen in a momentary glance beyond them a narrower passage, more numerous openings, and symptoms of a winding staircase, believed herself at last within the reach of something worth her notice, and felt as she unwillingly paced back the gallery that she would rather be allowed to examine that end of the house than see all the finery of all the rest. The general's evident desire of preventing such an examination was an additional stimulant. Something was certainly to be concealed. Her fancy, though it had trespassed lately once or twice, could not mislead her here. And what that something was, a short sentence of Miss Tilney's, as they followed the general at some distance downstairs, seemed to point out. I was going to take you into what was my mother's room, the room in which she died. Were all her words. But few as they were they conveyed pages of intelligence to Catherine. It was no wonder that the general should shrink from the sight of such objects as that room must contain, a room in all probability never entered by him since the dreadful scene had passed which released his suffering wife and left him to the stings of conscience. She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor, to express a wish of being permitted to see it, as well as all the rest of that side of the house, and Eleanor promised to attend her there whenever they should have a convenient hour. Catherine understood her. The general must be watched from home before that room could be entered. It remains as it was, I suppose, said she in a tone of feeling. Yes, entirely. And how long ago may it be that your mother died? She has been dead these nine years. And nine years Catherine knew was a trifle of time compared with what generally elapsed after the death of an injured wife before her room was put to rights. You were with her, I suppose, to the last? No, said Miss Tilney sighing. I was unfortunately from home. Her illness was sudden, in short, and before I arrived it was all over. Catherine's blood ran cold with the horrid suggestions which naturally sprang from these words. Could it be possible? Could Henry's father, and yet how many were the examples to justify even the blackest suspicions? And when she saw him in the evening while she worked with her friend, slowly pacing the drawing-room for an hour together in silent thoughtfulness with downcast eyes and contracted brow, she felt secure from all possibility of wronging him. It was the air and attitude of a Montoni. What could more plainly speak the gloomy workings of a mind not wholly dead to every sense of humanity in its fearful review of past scenes of guilt? Unhappy man! And the anxiousness of her spirits directed her eyes toward his figure so repeatedly as to catch Miss Tilney's notice. My father, she whispered, often walks about the room in this way. It is nothing unusual. So much the worse! Thought Catherine, such ill-timed exercise was of a peace with the strange unseasonableness of his morning walks, and boded nothing good. After an evening, the little variety and seeming length of which made her peculiarly sensible of Henry's importance among them, she was heartily glad to be dismissed, though it was a look from the general not designed for her observation, which sent his daughter to the bell. When the butler would have lit his master's candle, however, he was forbidden. The latter was not going to retire. I have many pamphlets to finish, said he to Catherine. Before I can close my eyes, and perhaps may be pouring over the affairs of the nation for hours after you are asleep. Can either of us be more meately employed? My eyes will be blinding for the good of others and yours preparing, by rest, for future mischief. But neither the business alleged nor the magnificent compliment could win Catherine from thinking that some very different object must occasion so serious a delay of proper repose.  There must be some deeper cause, something was to be done which could be done only while the household slept. And the probability that Mrs. Tillney yet lived shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless hand of her husband a nightly supply of course food, was the conclusion which necessarily followed. Shocking as was the idea, it was at least better than a death unfairly hastened, as in the natural course of things she must ere long be released. The suddenness of a reputed illness, the absence of a daughter, and probably of her other children, had the time all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin, jealousy perhaps, or wanton cruelty, was yet to be unravelled. In revolving these matters while she undressed it suddenly struck her as not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the very spot of this unfortunate woman's confinement, might have been within a few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days, for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic division? In the high arched passage paved with stone, which already she had trodden with peculiar, or she well remembered the doors of which the general had given no account. To what might not those doors lead? In support of the plausibility of this conjecture, it further occurred to her that the forbidden gallery in which lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney must be, as certainly as her memory could guide her exactly over this suspected range of cells, and the staircase by the side of those apartments, of which she had caught a transient glimpse communicating by some secret means with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarous proceedings of her husband. Down that staircase, she had perhaps been conveyed in a state of well-prepared insensibility. Catherine sometimes started at the boldness of her own surmises, and sometimes hoped or feared that she had gone too far, but they were supported by such appearances as made their dismissal impossible. The side of the quadrangle in which she supposed the guilty scene to be acting, being according to her belief just opposite her own, it struck her that if judiciously watched some rays of light from the general's lamp might glimmer through the lower windows as he passed to the prison of his wife, and twice before she stepped into bed, she stole gently from her room to the corresponding window in the gallery to see if it appeared, but all abroad was dark, and it must yet be too early. The various ascending noises convinced her that the servants must still be up. She supposed it would be in vain to watch, but then when the clock had struck twelve and all was quiet, she would, if not quite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more. The clock struck twelve and Catherine had been half an hour asleep. The next day afforded no opportunity for the proposed examination of the mysterious apartments. It was Sunday, and the whole time between morning and afternoon service was required by the general an exercise abroad, or eating cold meat at home, and great as was Catherine's curiosity, her courage was not equal to a wish of exploring them after dinner, either by the fading light of the sky between six and seven o'clock, or by the yet more partial, though stronger, illumination of a treacherous lamp. The day was unmarked, therefore, by anything to interest her imagination, beyond the sight of a very elegant monument to the memory of Mrs. Tilney, which immediately fronted the family pew. By that her eye was instantly caught, and long retained, and the perusal of the highly strained epitaph, in which every virtue was ascribed to her by the inconsolable husband, who must have been in some way or other her destroyer, affected her even to tears. That the general, having erected such a monument, should be able to face it, was not perhaps very strange, and yet that he could sit so boldly collected within its view, maintained so elevated an air, looked so fearlessly around, nay, that he should even enter the church, seemed wonderful to Catherine. Not, however, that many instances of beings equally hardened in guilt might not be produced. She could remember dozens who had persevered in every possible vice, going on from crime to crime, murdering whomsoever they chose, without any feeling of humanity or remorse, till a violent death or religious retirement closed their black career. The erection of the monument itself could not, in the smallest degree, affect her doubts of Mrs. Tilney's actual decease, were she even to descend into the family vault where her ashes were supposed to slumber, were she to behold the coffin in which they were said to be enclosed? What could it avail in such a case? Catherine had read too much not to be perfectly aware of the ease with which a waxen figure might be introduced, and a suppositious funeral carried on. The succeeding mourning promised something better. The general's early walk, ill-timed as it was in every other view, was favourable here, and when she knew him to be out of the house, she directly proposed to Miss Tilney the accomplishment of her promise. Eleanor was ready to oblige her, and Catherine reminding her as they went of another promise, their first visit in consequence was to the portrait in her bed-chamber. It represented a very lovely woman with a mild and pensive countenance, justifying so far the expectations of its new observer. But they were not in every respect answered, for Catherine had depended upon meeting with features, hair, complexion, that should be the very counterpart, the very image, if not of Henry's, of Eleanor's, the only portraits of which she had been in the habit of thinking, bearing always an equal resemblance of mother and child. A face once taken was taken for generations, but here she was obliged to look and consider, and study for a likeness. She contemplated it, however, in spite of this drawback, with much emotion, and, but for a yet stronger interest, would have left it unwillingly. Her agitation as they entered the great gallery was too much for any endeavour at discourse, she could only look at her companion. Eleanor's countenance was dejected, yet sedate, and its composure spoke her anew to all the gloomy objects to which they were advancing. Again she passed through the folding doors, again her hand was upon the important lock, and Catherine, hardly able to breathe, was turning to close the former with fearful caution, when the figure, the dreaded figure of the general himself at the further end of the gallery stood before her, the name of— Eleanor. At the same moment in his loudest tone resounded through the building, giving to his daughter the first intimation of his presence, and to Catherine, terror upon terror. An attempt at concealment had been her first instinctive movement on perceiving him, yet she could scarcely hope to have escaped his eye, and when her friend, who with an apologising look darted hastily by her, had joined and disappeared with him, she ran for safety to her own room, and locking herself in, believed that she should never have courage to go down again. She remained there at least an hour in the greatest agitation, deeply commiserating the state of her poor friend, and expecting a summons herself from the angry general to attend him in his own apartment. No summons, however, arrived, and at last, on seeing a carriage drive up to the abbey, she was emboldened to descend and meet him under the protection of visitors. The breakfast-room was gay with company, and she was named to them by the general as— The friend his daughter. In a complementary style, which so well concealed his resentful ire as to make her feel secure at least of life for the present, and Eleanor, with a command of countenance which did honour to her concern for his character, taking an early occasion of saying to her— My father only wanted me to answer a note. She began to hope that she had either been unseen by the general, or that from some consideration of policy she should be allowed to suppose herself so. Upon this trust, she dared still to remain in his presence, after the company left them, and nothing occurred to disturb it. In the course of this morning's reflections, she came to a resolution of making her next attempt on the forbidden door alone. It would be much better in every respect that Eleanor should know nothing of the matter to involve her in the danger of a second detection to court her into an apartment which must ring her heart, could not be the office of a friend. The general's utmost anger could not be to herself what it might be to a daughter, and besides, she thought the examination itself would be more satisfactory if made without any companion. It would be impossible to explain to Eleanor the suspicions from which the other had in all likelihood been hitherto happily exempt. Nor could she therefore, in her presence, search for those proofs of the general's cruelty, which, however they might yet have escaped discovery, she felt confident of somewhere drawing forth in the shape of some fragmented journal continued to the last gasp. Of the way to the apartment she was now perfectly mistress, and as she wished to get it over before Henry's return, who was expected on the morrow, there is no time to be lost. The day was bright, her courage high. At four o'clock, the sun was now two hours above the horizon, and it would be only her retiring to dress half an hour earlier than usual. It was done, and Catherine found herself alone in the gallery before the clocks had ceased to strike. It was no time for thought. She hurried on, slipped with the least possible noise through the folding doors, and without stopping to look or breathe, rushed forward to the one in question. The lock yielded to her hand, and luckily, with no sullen sound that could alarm a human being. On tiptoe she entered. The room was before her, but it was some minutes before she could advance another step. She beheld what fixed her to the spot, and agitated every feature. She saw a large, well-proportioned apartment, and handsome dimity bed, arranged as unoccupied with housemaid's care. A bright bath-stove, mahogany wardrobes, and neatly painted chairs, on which the warm beams of a western sun gaily poured through two sash windows. Catherine had expected to have her feelings worked, and worked they were. Astonishment and doubt first seized them, and a shortly succeeding ray of common sense added some bitter emotions of shame. She could not be mistaken us to the room, but how grossly mistaken in everything else in Miss Tilney's meaning in her own calculation. This apartment, to which she had given a date so ancient, a position so awful, proved to be one end of what the General's father had built. There were two other doors in the chamber, leading probably into dressing-closets, but she had no inclination to open either. Would the veil in which Miss Tilney had last walked, or the volume in which she had last read, remain to tell what nothing else was allowed to whisper? No, whatever might have been the General's crimes, he had certainly too much wit to let them sue for detection. She was sick of exploring, and desired but to be safe in her own room, with her own heart only privy to its folly, and she was on the point of retreating as softly as she had entered when the sound of footsteps she could hardly tell where made her pause and tremble. To be found there, even by a servant, would be unpleasant, but by the General, and he seemed always at hand when least wanted, much worse. She listened, the sound had ceased, and resolving not to lose a moment, she passed through and closed the door. At that instant, a door underneath was hastily opened, someone seemed with swift steps to ascend the stairs, by the head of which she had yet to pass before she could gain the gallery. She had no power to move, with a feeling of terror not very definable, she fixed her eyes on the staircase, and in a few moments it gave Henry to her view. Mr. Tilney. She exclaimed in a voice of more than common astonishment. He looked astonished too. Good God. She continued, not attending to his address. How came you here? How came you up that staircase? How came I up that staircase? He replied, greatly surprised. Because it is my nearest way from the Stableyard to my own chamber, and why should I not come up it? Catherine recollected herself, blushed deeply, and could say no more. He seemed to be looking in her countenance for that explanation, which her lips did not afford. She moved on towards the gallery. And may I not in my turn? said he as he pushed back the folding doors. Ask how you came here. This passage is at least as extraordinary a road from the breakfast parlor to your apartment, as that staircase can be from the stables to mine. I have bane. said Catherine, looking down. To see your mother's room. My mother's room? Is there anything extraordinary to be seen there? No, nothing at all. I thought you did not mean to come back till tomorrow. I did not expect to be able to return sooner when I went away. But three hours ago I had the pleasure of finding nothing to detain me. You look pale. I am afraid I alarmed you by running so fast up those stairs. Perhaps you did not know. You were not aware of their leading from the offices in common use. No, I was not. You have had a very fine day for your ride. Very. And does Eleanor leave you to find your way into all the rooms in the house by yourself? Oh, no. She showed me over the greatest part on Saturday, and we were coming here to these rooms but only... Dropping her voice. Your father was with us. And that prevented you. Said Henry, earnestly regarding her. Have you looked into all the rooms in that passage? No, I only wanted to see. Is it not very late? I must go and dress. It is only a quarter past four. Showing his watch. And you are not now in Bath. No theatre, no rooms to prepare for. Half an hour at North Anger must be enough. She could not contradict it, and therefore suffered herself to be detained, though her dread of further questions made her, for the first time in their acquaintance, wish to leave him. They walked slowly up the gallery. Have you had any letter from Bath since I saw you? No, and I am very much surprised. Isabella promised so faithfully to write directly. Promised so faithfully? A faithful promise? That puzzles me. I have heard of a faithful performance, but a faithful promise, the fidelity of promising. It is a power little worth knowing, however, since it can deceive and pain you. My mother's room is very commodious, is it not? Large and cheerful-looking, and the dressing-closet so well-disposed. It always strikes me as the most comfortable apartment in the house, and I rather wonder that Eleanor should not take it for her own. She sent you to look at it, I suppose. No. It has been your own doing entirely? Catherine said nothing. After a short silence, during which she had closely observed her, he added, As there is nothing in the room itself to raise curiosity, this must have proceeded from a sentiment of respect for my mother's character, as described by Eleanor, which it does honour to her memory. The world, I believe, never saw a better woman. But it is not often that virtue can boast an interest such as this. The domestic, unpretending merits of a person never known do not often create that kind of fervent, venerating tenderness, which would prompt a visit like yours. Eleanor, I suppose, has talked of her a great deal. Yes, a great deal. That is, no, not much, but what she did say was very interesting, her dying so suddenly. Slowly, and with hesitation, it was spoken. And you?  And your father, I thought. Perhaps had not been very fond of her. And from these circumstances? He replied, his quick eye fixed on hers. You infer perhaps the probability of some negligence, some— Involuntarily, she shook her head. Or it may be of something still less pardonable. She raised her eyes towards him more fully than she had ever done before. My mother's illness? He continued. The seizure which ended in her death was sudden. The malady itself, one from which she had often suffered, a bilious fever. It's caused, therefore, a constitutional. On the third day, in short, as soon as she could be prevailed on, a physician attended her, a very respectable man, and one in whom she had always placed great confidence. Upon his opinion of her danger, two others were called in the next day, and remained in almost constant attendance for four and twenty hours. On the fifth day, she died. During the progress of her disorder, Frederick and I, we were both at home, saw her repeatedly, and from our own observation come bear witness to her having received every possible attention which could spring from the affection of those about her, or which her situation in life could command. Poor Eleanor was absent, and at such a distance as to return only to see her mother in her coffin. But your father, said Catherine, was he afflicted? For a time greatly so. You have erred in supposing him not attached to her. He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was possible for him to. We have not all, you know, the same tenderness of disposition. And I will not pretend to say that while she lived, she might not often have had much to bear. But though his temper injured her, his judgment never did. His value of her was sincere, and, if not permanently, he was truly afflicted by her death. I am very glad of it, said Catherine. It would have been very shocking. If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to— Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians.  Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dear Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting? They had reached the end of the gallery, and with tears of shame, she ran off to her own room. The visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely awakened. Henry's address, short as it had been, had more thoroughly opened her eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their several disappointments had done. Most grievously was she humbled, most bitterly did she cry. It was not only with herself that she was sunk, but with Henry. Her folly, which now seemed even criminal, was all exposed to him, and he must despise her for ever. The liberty which her imagination had dared to take with the character of his father. Could he ever forgive it? The absurdity of her curiosity interferes. Could they ever be forgotten? She hated herself more than she could express. He had, she thought he had, once or twice before this fatal mourning, shown something like affection for her. But now. In short, she made herself as miserable as possible for about half an hour, went down when the clock struck five with a broken heart, and could scarcely give an intelligible answer to Eleanor's inquiry if she was well. The formidable Henry soon followed her into the room, and the only difference in his behaviour to her was that he paid her rather more attention than usual. Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and he looked as if he was aware of it. The evening wore away with no abatement of this soothing politeness, and her spirits were gradually raised to a modest tranquility. She did not learn either to forget or defend the past, but she learned to hope that it would never transpire farther, and that it might not cost her Henry's entire regard. Her thoughts being still chiefly fixed on what she had with such causeless terror felt and done, nothing could shortly be clearer than that. It had been all a voluntary self-created delusion, each trifling circumstance receiving importance from an imagination resolved on alarm, and everything forced to bend to one purpose by a mind which, before she entered the abbey, had been craving to be frightened. She remembered with what feeling she had prepared for a knowledge of North Anger. She saw that the infatuation had been created, the mischief settled, long before her quitting bath, and it seemed as if the whole might be traced to the influence of that sort of reading, which she had there indulged. Charming as were all Mrs Radcliffe's works, and charming even as were the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human nature, at least in the Midland Counties of England, was to be looked for, of the Alps and Pyrenees, with their pine forests, and their vices, they might give a faithful delineation, and Italy, Switzerland, and the south of France, might be as fruitful in horrors as they were there represented. Catherine dared not doubt beyond her own country, and even of that, if hard pressed, would have yielded the northern and western extremities. But in the central part of England there was surely some security for the existence even of a wife not beloved in the laws of the land, and the manners of the age. Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poisoned nor sleeping potions, to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist. Among the Alps and Pyrenees, perhaps, there were no mixed characters, there, such as were not spotless as an angel might have the dispositions of a fiend, but in England it was not so among the English. She believed. In the hots and habits there was a general, though unequal, mixture of good and bad. Upon this conviction she would not be surprised if even in Henry and Eleanor Tilney some slight imperfection might hereafter appear, and upon this conviction she need not fair to acknowledge some actual specs in the character of their father, who, though cleared from the grossly injurious suspicions which she must ever blush to have entertained, she did believe upon serious consideration to be not perfectly amiable. Her mind made up on these several points, and her resolution formed of always judging and acting in future with the greatest good sense. She had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever, and the lenient hand of time did much for her by insensible gradations in the course of another day. Henry's astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct, in never alluding in the slightest way to what had passed, was of the greatest assistance to her, and sooner than she could have supposed it possible in the beginning of her distress, her spirits became absolutely comfortable and capable, as heretofore, of continual improvement by anything he said. There were still some subjects, indeed, under which she believed they must always tremble, the mention of a chest or a cabinet, for instance, and she did not love the sight of Japan in any shape, but even she could allow that an occasional memento of past folly, however painful, might not be without use. The anxieties of common life began soon to succeed to the alarms of romance. Her desire of hearing from Isabella grew every day greater. She was quite impatient to know how the bath world went on, and how the rooms were attended, and especially was she anxious to be assured of Isabella's having matched some fine netting-cotton on which she had left her intent, and of her continuing on the best terms with James. Her only dependence for information of any kind was on Isabella. James had protested against writing to her till his return to Oxford, and Mrs. Allen had given her no hopes of a letter till she had got back to Fullerton. But Isabella had promised and promised again, and when she promised a thing she was so scrupulous in performing it, this made it so particularly strange. For nine successive mornings Catherine wondered over the repetition of a disappointment, which each morning became more severe, but on the tenth, when she entered the breakfast room, her first object was a letter held out by Henry's willing hand. She thanked him as heartily as if he had written it himself. Tis only from James, however. As she looked at the direction, she opened it. It was from Oxford, and to this purpose. Dear Catherine, though God knows, with little inclination for writing, I think it my duty to tell you that everything is at an end between Miss Thorpe and me. I left her in Bath yesterday, never to see either again. I shall not enter into particulars, they would only pay you more. You will soon hear enough from another quarter to know where lies the blame, and I hope will acquit your brother of everything but the folly of too easily thinking his affection returned. Thank God I am undeceived in time, but it is a heavy blow. After my father's consent had been so kindly given, but no more of this. She has made me miserable forever. Let me soon hear from you, dear Catherine. You are my only friend. Your love I do build upon. I wish your visit at North Anga may be over before Captain Tilney makes his engagement known, or you will be uncomfortably circumcised. Paul Thorpe is in town. I dread the sight of him. His honest heart would feel so much. I have written to him and my father. Her duplicity hurts me more than all. Till the very last, if I reasoned with her, she declared herself as much attached to me as ever, and laughed at my fears. I am ashamed to think how long I bore with it, but if ever man had reasoned to believe himself loved, I was that man. I cannot understand even now what she would be at, for there could be no need of my being played off to make her secure of Tilney. We parted at last by mutual consent. Happy for me had we never met. I can never expect to know such another woman. Dearest Catherine, beware how you give your heart. Believe me, etc. Catherine had not read three lines before her sudden change of countenance and short exclamations of sorrowing wonder declared her to be receiving unpleasant news, and Henry, earnestly watching her through the whole letter, saw plainly that it ended no better than it began. He was prevented, however, from even looking his surprise by his father's entrance. They went to breakfast directly, but Catherine could hardly eat anything.  The letter was one moment in her hand, then in her lap, and then in her pocket, and she looked as if she knew not what she did. The general between his cocoa and his newspaper had luckily no leisure for noticing her, but to the other two her distress was equally visible. As soon as she dared leave the table, she hurried away to her own room. The housemaids were busy in it, and she was obliged to come down again. She turned into the drawing-room for privacy, but Henry and Eleanor had likewise retreated thither and were at that moment deep in consultation about her. She drew back, trying to beg their pardon, but was with gentle violence forced to return, and the others withdrew after Eleanor had affectionately expressed a wish of being of use or comfort to her. After half an hour's free indulgence of grief and reflection, Catherine felt equal to encountering her friends, but whether she should make her distress known to them was another consideration. Perhaps if particularly questioned, she might just give an idea, just distantly hint at it, but not more. To expose a friend, such a friend as Isabella had been to her, and then their only brother so closely concerned in it, she believed she must waive the subject altogether. Henry and Eleanor were by themselves in the breakfast room, and each, as she entered it, looked at her anxiously. Catherine took her place at the table, and after a short silence, Eleanor said, No bad news from Fullerton, I hope. Mr. and Mrs. Moorland, your brothers and sisters, I hope they are none of them ill. No, I thank you. Sighing as she spoke, They are all very well. My letter was from my brother at Oxford. Nothing further was said for a few minutes, and then, speaking through her tears, she added, I do not think I shall ever wish for a letter again. I am sorry, said Henry, closing the book he had just opened. If I had suspected the letter of containing anything unwelcome, I should have given it with very different feelings. It contained something worse than anybody could suppose. Poor James is so unhappy. You will soon know why. To have so kind-hearted, so affectionate a sister, replied Henry warmly. Must be a comfort to him under any distress. I have one favour to beg, said Catherine shortly afterwards, in an agitated manner. That, if your brother should be coming here, he will give me notice of it, that I may go away. Our brother? Frederick? Yes, I am sure I should be very sorry to leave you so soon, but something has happened that would make it very dreadful for me to be in the same house with Captain Thillney. Eleanor's work was suspended while she gazed with increasing astonishment, but Henry began to suspect the truth, and something, in which Miss Thorpe's name was included, passed his lips. How quick you are! cried Catherine. You have guessed it, I declare, and yet when we talked about it in birth you little thought of its ending so. Isabella, no wonder now I have not heard from her, Isabella has deserted my brother and is to marry yours. Could you have believed there had been such inconstancy and fickleness and everything that is bad in the world? I hope, so far as concerns my brother, you are misinformed. I hope he has not had any material share in bringing on Mr. Moorland's disappointment. His marrying Miss Thorpe is not probable. I think you must be deceived so far. I am very sorry for Mr. Moorland, sorry that anyone you love should be unhappy, but my surprise will be greater at Frederick's marrying her than at any other part of the story. It is very true, however, you shall read James's letter yourself. Stay, there is one part. Recollecting with a blush the last line. Will you take the trouble of reading to us the passages which concern my brother? No, read it yourself. cried Catherine, whose second thoughts were clearer. I do not know what I was thinking of. Blushing again that she had blushed before. James only means to give me good advice. He gladly received the letter, and having read it through with close attention, returned it, saying, Well, if it is to be so, I can only say that I am sorry for it. Frederick will not be the first man who has chosen a wife with less sense than his family expected. I do not envy his situation, either as a lover or a son. Miss Tilney at Catherine's invitation now read the letter likewise, and having expressed also her concern and surprise, began to inquire into Miss Thorpe's connections and fortune. Her mother is a very good sort of woman, was Catherine's answer. What was her father? A lawyer, I believe. They live at Putney. Are they a wealthy family? No, not very. I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at all, but that will not signify in your family, your father is so very liberal. He told me the other day that he only valued money as allowed him to promote the happiness of his children. The brother and sister looked at each other. But, said Eleanor, after a short pause, would it be to promote his happiness, to enable him to marry such a girl? She must be an unprincipled one, or she could not have used your brother so. And how strange an infatuation on Frederick's side! A girl, who, before his eyes, is violating an engagement who voluntarily entered into with another man, is not it inconceivable, Henry? Frederick, too, who always wore his heart so proudly, who found no woman good enough to be loved. That is the most unpromising circumstance, the strongest presumption against him. When I think of his past declarations, I give him up. Moreover, I have too good an opinion of Miss Thorpe's prudence to suppose that she would part with one gentleman before the other were secured. It is all over with Frederick, indeed. He is a deceased man, defunct in understanding. Prepare for your sister-in-law, Eleanor, and such a sister-in-law as you must delight in, open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions and knowing no disguise. Such a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in. Said Eleanor with a smile. But, perhaps— Observed, Catherine. Though she has behaved so ill by our family, she may behave better by yours. Now she has really got the man she likes. She may be constant. Indeed, I am afraid she will. Replied, Henry. I am afraid she will be very constant, unless a baronet should come in her way. That is Frederick's only chance. I will get the bath-paper, and look over the arrivals. You think it is all for ambition, then? And upon my word there are some things that seem very like it. I cannot forget that, when she first knew what my father would do for them, she seemed quite disappointed that it was not more. I never was so deceived in anyone's character in my life before. Among all the great variety that you have known and studied, my own disappointment in loss in hers very great, but as for poor James, I suppose you will hardly ever recover it. Your brother is certainly very much to be pitted at present, but we must not, in our concern for his sufferings, undervalue yours. You feel, I suppose, that, in losing Isabella, you lose half yourself. You feel a void in your heart, which nothing else can occupy. Society is becoming irksome. And as for the amusements in which you will want to share at bath, the very idea of them without her is abhorrent. You would not, for instance, now go to a ball for the world. You feel that you have no longer any friend to whom you can speak with unreserved, on whose regard you can place dependence, or whose counsel in any difficulty you could rely on. You feel all this? No, said Catherine, after a few moments' reflection. I do not, ought I, to say the truth, though I am hurt and grieved that I cannot still love her, that I am never to hear from her, perhaps never to see her again. I do not feel so very, very much afflicted as one would have thought. You feel, as you always do, what is most of the credit of human nature. Such feelings ought to be investigated, that they may know themselves. Catherine, by some chance or other, found her spirit so very much relieved by this conversation that she could not regret her being led on, though so unaccountably, to mention the circumstance which had produced it. CHAPTER XXVI From this time the subject was frequently canvassed by the three young people, and Catherine found, with some surprise, that her two young friends were perfectly agreed in considering Isabella's want of consequence and fortune, as likely to throw great difficulties in the way of her marrying their brother. Their persuasion that the general would, upon this ground alone, independent of the objection that might be raised against her character, oppose the connection, turned her feelings moreover with some alarm towards herself. She was as insignificant, and perhaps as portionless as Isabella, and if the heir of the Tilney property had not grandeur and wealth enough in himself, at what point of interest were the demands of his younger brother to rest? The very painful reflections to which this thought led could only be dispersed by a dependence on the effect of that particular partiality, which, as she was given to understand by his words as well as his actions, she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the general, and by a recollection of some most generous and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money, which he had more than once heard him utter, and which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters misunderstood by his children. They were so fully convinced, however, that their brother would not have the courage to apply in person for his father's consent, and so repeatedly assured her that he had never in his life been less likely to come to Northanger than at the present time, that she suffered her mind to be at ease as to the necessity of any sudden removal of her own. But as it was not to be supposed that Captain Tilney, whenever he made his application, would give his father any just idea of Isabella's conduct, it occurred to her as highly expedient that Henry should lay the whole business before him as it really was, enabling the general by that means to form a cool and impartial opinion and prepare his objections on a fairer ground than inequality of situations. She proposed it to him accordingly, but he did not catch at the measure so eagerly as she had expected. No, said he. My father's hands need not be strengthened, and Frederick's confession of folly need not be forestalled. He must tell his own story. But he will tell only half of it. A quarter would be enough. A day or two passed away and brought no tidings of Captain Tilney. His brother and sister knew not what to think. Sometimes it appeared to them as if his silence would be the natural result of the suspected engagement, and at others that it was wholly incompatible with it. The general, meanwhile, though offended every morning by Frederick's remissness in writing, was free from any real anxiety about him, and had no more pressing solicitude than that of making Miss Morland's time at Northanger pass pleasantly. He often expressed his uneasiness on this head, feared the sameness of everyday society and employments would disgust her with the place, wished the Lady Frazier's had been in the country, talked every now and then of having a large party to dinner, and once or twice began even to calculate the number of young dancing people in the neighbourhood. But then it was such a dead time of year, no wildfowl, no game, and the Lady Frazier's were not in the country. And it all ended at last in his telling Henry one morning that when he next went to Woodstone they would take him by surprise there some day or other, and eat their mutton with him. Henry was greatly honoured and very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted with the scheme. And when do you think so, I may look forward to this pleasure. I must be at Woodstone on Monday to attend the parish meeting, and shall probably be obliged to stay two or three days. Well, well, we will take our chance some one of those days. There is no need to fix. You are not to put yourself at all out of your way. Whatever you may happen to have in the house would be enough. I think I can answer for the young ladies making allowance for bachelor's table. Let me see. Monday will be a busy day with you. We will not come on Monday. And a Tuesday will be a busy one with me. I expect my severe from Brockham with his repart in the morning, and afterwards I cannot in decency fail attend in the club. I really could not face my acquaintance if I stayed away now, for as I am known to be in the contrary, it would be taken excessively amiss. And it is a rule with me, Miss Marland, never to give offence to any of my neighbours, if a small sacrifice of time and attention can prevent it. They are a set of very worthy men. They have half a buck from North Anger, twice a year, and I dine with them whenever I can. Tuesday, therefore, we may see, is out of the question. But on Wednesday, I think, Henry, you may expect us, and we shall be with you earlier, that we may have time to look about us. Two hours and three quarters will carry us to Woodstone, I suppose. We shall be in the carriage by ten, so about a quarter before one on Wednesday. You may look for us. A ball itself could not have been more welcome to Catherine than this little excursion. So strong was her desire to be acquainted with Woodstone, and her heart was still bounding with joy when Henry, about an hour afterwards, came booted and great-coated into the room where she and Eleanor were sitting, and said, I am come, young ladies, in a very moralising strain, to observe that our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for, and that we often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving ready-moneyed actual happiness for a draft on the future that may not be honoured. Witness myself at this present hour, because I am to hope for the satisfaction of seeing you at Woodstone on Wednesday, which bad weather or twenty other causes may prevent, I must go away directly, two days before I intended it. Go away, said Catherine, with a very long face. And why? Why? How can you ask the question? Because no time is to be lost in frightening my old housekeeper out of her wits, because I must go and prepare a dinner for you, to be sure. Oh, not seriously! I, and sadly, too, for I had much rather stare. But how can you think of such a thing, after what the general said, when he so particularly desired you not to give yourself any trouble because anything would do? Henry only smiled. I am sure it is quite unnecessary upon your sister's account and mine. You must know it to be so, and the general made such a point of your providing nothing extraordinary. Besides, if he had not said half so much as he did, he is always such an excellent dinner at home, that sitting down to a middling one for one day could not signify.  Goodbye. As tomorrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return. He went, and, it being at any time a much simpler operation to Catherine to doubt her own judgment than Henry's, she was very soon obliged to give him credit for being right, however disagreeable to her his going. But the inexplicability of the general's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts, that he was very particular in his eating she had by her own unassisted observation already discovered. But why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable. How were people at that rate to be understood, who but Henry could have been aware of what his father was at? From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without Henry. This was the sad finale of every reflection, and Captain Tillney's letter would certainly come in his absence, and Wednesday she was very sure would be wet. The past, present, and future were all equally in gloom. Her brother so unhappy, and her loss and Isabella so great, and Eleanor's spirits always affected by Henry's absence. What was there to interest or amuse her? She was tired of the woods and the shrubberies, always so smooth and so dry, and the abbey in itself was no more to her now than any other house. The painful remembrance of the folly it had helped to nourish and perfect was the only emotion which could spring from a consideration of the building.  She who had so longed to be in an abbey. Now there was nothing so charming to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a well-connected personage, something like Fullerton, but better. Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably had none, if Wednesday should ever come. It did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably looked for. It came, it was fine, and Catherine trod on air. By ten o'clock, the Shers and Four conveyed the trio from the abbey, and, after an agreeable drive of almost twenty miles, they entered Woodston, a large and populous village, in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine was ashamed to say how pretty she thought it, as the generals seemed to think an apology necessary for the flatness of the country and the size of the village. But in her heart she preferred it to any place she had ever been at, and looked with great admiration at every neat house above the rank of a cottage, and at all the little chandlers' shops which they passed. At the further end of the village, and tolerably disengaged from the rest of it, stood the parsonage, a new built substantial stone house with its semicircular sweep and green gates, and, as they drove up to the door, Henry with the friends of his solitude, a large Newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers, was ready to receive and make much of them. Catherine's mind was too full, as she entered the house, for her either to observe or to say a great deal, and, till called on by the general for her opinion of it, she had very little idea of the room in which she was sitting. Upon looking round it then, she perceived in a moment that it was the most comfortable room in the world, but she was too guarded to say so, and the coldness of her praise disappointed him. We are not calling it a good house, said he. We are not comparing it with Fullerton and Northanger. We are considering it as a mere parsonage. Small and confined, we allow, but decent, perhaps, and habitable, and altogether not inferior to the generality. Or, in other words, I believe there are few country parsonages in England half so good. It may admit of improvement, however. Far be it from me to say otherwise, and anything in reason. A bow thrown out, perhaps? Though, between ourselves, if there is one thing more than another, my aversion, it is a patched on bow. Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand or be pained by it, and other subjects being studiously brought forward and supported by Henry, at the same time that a tray full of refreshments was introduced by his servant, the general was shortly restored to his complacency, and Catherine to all her usual ease of spirits. The room in question was of a commodious, well-proportioned size, and handsomely fitted up as a dining parlor, and on the quitting it to walk round the grounds, she was shown, first into a smaller apartment, belonging peculiarly to the master of the house, and made unusually tidy on the occasion, and afterwards into what was to be the drawing-room, with the appearance of which, though unfurnished, Catherine was delighted enough even to satisfy the general. It was a prettily shaped room, the windows reaching to the ground, and the view from them pleasant, though only over green meadows, and she expressed her admiration at the moment with all the honest simplicity with which she felt it. Oh! why do not you fit up this room, Mr. Tilney?  It is the prettiest room I ever saw! It is the prettiest room in the world! I trust, said the general, with a most satisfied smile, that it will, very speedily, be furnished. It waits only for a lady's taste. Well, if it was my house, I should never sit anywhere else.  Apple trees, too! It is the prettiest cottage. You like it? You approve of it as an object. It is enough. Henry, remember that Robertson is spoken to about it. The cottage remains. Such a compliment recalled all Catherine's consciousness, and silenced her directly. And, though pointedly applied to by the general for her choice of the prevailing color of the paper and hangings, nothing like an opinion on the subject could be drawn from her. The influence of fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great use in dissipating these embarrassing associations, and, having reached the ornamental part of the premises, consisting of a walk round two sides of a meadow on which Henry's genius had begun to act about half a year ago, she was sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any pleasure ground she had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it higher than the green bench in the corner. A saunter into other meadows, and through part of the village, with a visit to the stables to examine some improvements, and a charming game of play with a litter of puppies just able to roll about, brought them to four o'clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it could be three. At four they were to dine, and at six to set off on their return. Never had any day passed so quickly. She could not but observe that the abundance of the dinner did not seem to create the smallest astonishment in the general, nay, that he was even looking at the side table for cold meat which was not there. His son and daughter's observations were of a different kind. They had seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own, and never before known him so little disconcerted by the melted butters being oiled. At six o'clock, the general having taken his coffee, the carriage again received them. And so gratifying had been the tenor of his conduct throughout the whole visit, so well assured was her mind on the subject of his expectations, that, could she have felt equally confident of the wishes of his son, Catherine would have quitted Woodstone with a little anxiety as to the how or the when she might return to it. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The next morning brought the following very unexpected letter from Isabella. Bath. April. My dearest Catherine, I received your two kind letters with the greatest delight, and have a thousand apologies to make for not answering them sooner. I really am quite ashamed of my idleness, but in this horrid place one can find time for nothing. I have had my pen in my hand to begin a letter to you almost every day since you left far, but have always been prevented by some silly trifle or other. Pray right to me soon, and direct to my own home. Thank God we leave this vile place tomorrow. Since you went away I have had no pleasure in it. The dust is beyond anything, and everybody one cares for is gone. I believe if I could see you, I should not mind the rest, for you are dearer to me than anybody can conceive. I am quite uneasy about your dear brother, not having heard from him since he went to Oxford, and am fearful of some misunderstanding. Your kind officers will set all right. He is the only man I ever did or could love, and I trust you will convince him of it. The spring fashions are partly down, and the hat's the most frightful you can imagine. I hope you spend your time pleasantly, but am afraid you never think of me. I will not say all that I could of the family you are with, because I would not be ungenerous, or set you against those you were steam, but it is very difficult to know whom to trust, and young men never know their minds two days together. I rejoice to say that the young man whom of all others I particularly of whore has left bath. You will know from this description I must mean Captain Tilney, who, as you may remember, was amazingly disposed to follow and tease me before you went away. Afterwards he got worse, and became quite my shadow. Many girls might have been taken in, for never were such attentions, but I knew the fickle sex too well. He went away to his regiment two days ago, and I trust I shall never be plagued with him again. He is the greatest coxka my ever saw, and amazingly disagreeable. The last two days he was always by the side of Charlotte Davis. I pitted his taste, but took no notice of him. The last time we met was in Bath Street, and I turned directly into a shop that he might not speak to me. I would not even look at him. He went into the pump room afterwards, but I would not have followed him for all the world. Such a contrast between him and your brother. Prey sent me some news of the latter. I am quite unhappy about him. He seemed so uncomfortable when he went away with a cold, or something that affected his spirits. I would write to him myself, but have mislead his direction, and, as I hinted above, I am afraid he took something in my conduct amiss. Prey explained everything to his satisfaction, or, if he still harbours any doubt, a line from himself to me, or a call at Putney when next in town might set all to rights. I have not been to the rooms this age nor to the play, except going in last night with hodges for a frolic at half-price. They teased me into it, and I was determined they should not say I shut myself up because Tillney was gone. We happened to sit by the Mitchells, and they pretended to be quite surprised to see me out. I knew their spite. At one time they could not be civil to me, but now they are all friendship. But I am not to fool as to be taken in by them. You know I have a pretty good spirit of my own, and Mitchell had tried to put on a turban like mine, as I wore it the week before at the concert, but made wretched work of it. It happened to become my odd face, I believe, at least Tillney told me so at the time, and said every eye was upon me. But he is the last man whose word I would take. I wear nothing but purple now. I know I look hideous in it, but no matter. It is your dear brother's favourite colour. Lose no time, my dearest, sweetest Catherine, in writing to him and to me who ever am, etc. Such a strain of shallow artifice could not impose even upon Catherine. Its inconsistencies, contradictions, and falsehood struck her from the very first. She was ashamed of Isabella, and ashamed of having ever loved her. Her professions of attachment were now as disgusting as her excuses were empty, and her demands impudent. Right to James on her behalf. No, James should never hear Isabella's name mentioned by her again. On Henry's arrival from Woodstone, she made known to him and Eleanor their brother's safety, congratulating them with sincerity on it, and reading aloud the most material passages of her letter with strong indignation. When she had finished it. So much for Isabella. She cried.  But perhaps this has served to make her character better known to me than mine is to her. I see what she has been about. She's a vain cocket, and her tricks have not answered. I do not believe she had ever any regard either for James or for me, and I wish I had never known her. It will soon be as if you never had. Said Henry. There is but one thing that I cannot understand. I see that she has had designs uncapped until me, which have not succeeded, but I do not understand what Captain Tilney has been about all this time.  I have very little to say for Frederick's motives, such as I believe them to have been. He has his vanities as well as misthought, and the chief difference is that, having a stronger head, they have not yet injured himself. If the effect of his behaviour does not justify him with you, we had better not seek after the cause. Then you do not suppose he ever really cared about her? I am persuaded that he never did. And only made believe to do so for mischief's sake. Henry bowed his assent. Well, then, I must say I do not like him at all, though it has turned out so well for us, I do not like him at all. As it happens, there is no great harm done, because I do not think Isabella has any heart to lose, but suppose he had made her very much in love with him. But we must first suppose Isabella to have had a heart to lose, consequently to have been a very different creature, and in that case, she would have met with very different treatment. It is very right that you should stand by your brother. And if you would stand by yours, you would not be much distressed by the disappointment of Miss Thorpe. But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and therefore not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge. Catherine was complimented out of further bitterness. Frederick could not be unpardonably guilty, while Henry made himself so agreeable. She resolved on not answering Isabella's letter, and tried to think no more of it. Soon after this, the general found himself obliged to go to London for a week, and he left Northanger earnestly regretting that any necessity should rob him even for an hour of Miss Morland's company, and anxiously recommending the study of her comfort and amusement to his children as their chief object in his absence. His departure gave Catherine the first experimental conviction that a loss may be sometimes again. The happiness with which their time now passed, every employment voluntary, every laugh indulged, every meal a scene of ease and good humour, walking where they liked and when they liked, their hours, pleasures, and fatigues at their own command made a thoroughly sensible of the restraint which the general's presence had imposed, and most thankfully feel their present release from it. Such ease and such delights made her love the place and the people more and more every day, and had it not been for a dread of it soon becoming expedient to leave the one, and an apprehension of not being equally beloved by the other, she would at each moment of each day have been perfectly happy. But she was now in the fourth week of her visit, before the general came home, the fourth week would be turned, and perhaps it might seem an intrusion if she stayed much longer. This was a painful consideration whenever it occurred, and eager to get rid of such a weight on her mind, she very soon resolved to speak to Eleanor about it at once, propose going away, and be guided in her conduct by the manner in which her proposal might be taken. Aware that if she gave herself much time, she might feel it difficult to bring forward so unpleasant a subject, she took the first opportunity of being suddenly alone with Eleanor, and of Eleanor's being in the middle of a speech about something very different, to start forth her obligation of going away very soon. Eleanor looked and declared herself much concerned. She had hoped for the pleasure of her company for a much longer time, had been misled, perhaps by her wishes, to suppose that a much longer visit had been promised, and could not but think that if Mr. and Mrs. Moorland were aware of the pleasure it was to her, to have her there, they would be too generous to hasten her return. Catherine explained. Oh, as to that, Papa and Mama were in no hurry at all. As long as she was happy, they would always be satisfied. Then why might she ask in such a hurry herself to leave them? Oh, because she had been there so long. Hey, if you can use such a word, I can urge you no farther. If you think it long. Oh, no, I do not indeed. For my own pleasure I could stay with you as long again. And it was directly settled that, till she had, her leaving them was not even to be thought of. In having this cause of uneasiness so pleasantly removed, the force of the other was likewise weakened. The kindness, the earnestness of Eleanor's manner in pressing her to stay, and Henry's gratified look on being told that her stay was determined, was such sweet proofs of her importance with them, as left her only just so much solicitude as the human mind can never do comfortably without. She did, almost always, believe that Henry loved her, and quite always that his father and sister loved, and even wished her to belong to them, and believing so far, her doubts and anxieties were merely sportive irritations. Henry was not able to obey his father's injunction of remaining wholly at Northanger in attendance on the ladies during his absence in London, the engagements of his curator at Woodstone obliging him to leave them on Saturday for a couple of nights. His loss was not now what it had been while the general was at home. It lessened their gaiety but did not ruin their comfort, and the two girls agreeing in occupation and improving in intimacy found themselves so well sufficient for the time to themselves that it was eleven o'clock, rather a late hour at the abbey before they quitted the supper room on the day of Henry's departure. They had just reached the head of the stairs when it seemed as far as the thickness of the walls would allow them to judge that a carriage was driving up to the door, and the next moment confirmed the idea by the loud noise of the housebell. After the first perturbation of surprise had passed away, in a— Good Heaven! What can be the matter? It was quickly decided by Eleanor to be her eldest brother, whose arrival was often as sudden if not quite so unseasonable, and accordingly she hurried down to welcome him. Catherine walked on to her chamber, making up her mind as well as she could to a further acquaintance with Captain Tilney, and comforting herself under the unpleasant impression his conduct had given her, and the persuasion of his being by far too fine a gentleman to approve of her, that at least they should not meet under such circumstances as would make their meeting materially painful. She trusted he would never speak of misthought, and indeed, as he must by this time be ashamed of the part he had acted, there could be no danger of it, and as long as all mention of bath scenes were avoided, she thought she could behave to him very civilly. In such considerations time passed away, and it was certainly in his favour that Eleanor should be so glad to see him, and have so much to say, for half an hour was almost gone since his arrival, and Eleanor did not come up. At that moment Catherine thought she heard her step in the gallery, and listened for its continuance, but all was silent. Scarcely, however, had she convicted her fancy of error, when the noise of something moving close to her door made her start. It seemed as if someone was touching the very doorway, and in another moment a slight motion of the lock proved that some hand must be on it. She trembled a little at the idea of anyone's approaching so cautiously, but resolving not to be again overcome by trivial appearances of alarm, or misled by a raised imagination, she stepped quietly forward and opened the door. Eleanor, and only Eleanor, stood there. Catherine's spirits, however, were tranquilised but for an instant, for Eleanor's cheeks were pale, and her manner greatly agitated, though evidently intending to come in, it seemed an effort to enter the room, and are still greater to speak when there. Catherine supposing some uneasiness on Captain Tilney's account could only express her concern by silent attention, obliged her to be seated, rubbed her temples with lavender water, and hung over her with affectionate solicitude. My dear Catherine, you must not. You must not indeed. Where Eleanor's first connected words. I am quite well. This kindness distracts me. I cannot bear it. I come to you on such an errand. Arrend? To me? How shall I tell you? Oh, how shall I tell you? A new idea now darted into Catherine's mind, and turning as pale as her friend, she exclaimed. Tis a messenger from Woodstone. You are mistaken indeed. Returned Eleanor, looking at her most compassionately. It is no one from Woodstone. It is my father himself. Her voice faltered, and her eyes were turned to the ground as she mentioned his name. His unlooked-for return was enough in itself to make Catherine's heart sink, and for a few moments she hardly supposed there were anything worse to be told. She said nothing. And Eleanor, endeavouring to collect herself and speak with firmness, but with eyes still cast down, soon went on. You are too good, I am sure, to think the worse of me for the part I am obliged to perform. I am indeed a most unwilling messenger. After what has so lately passed, so lately been settled between us, how joyfully, how thankfully on my side, as to your continuing here as I hoped for many, many weeks longer. How can I tell you that your kindness is not to be accepted, and that the happiness your company has had that you've given us, is to be repaid by— But I must not trust myself with words. My dear Catherine, we are to part. My father has recollected an engagement that takes our whole family away on Monday. We are going to lower Longtons, near Herford, or a fortnight. Explanation and apology are equally impossible. I cannot attempt either. My dear Eleanor. Cried Catherine, suppressing her feelings as well as she could. Do not be so distressed. A second engagement must give way to a first. I am very, very sorry we are to part, so soon and so suddenly too. But I am not offended. Indeed, I am not. I can finish my visit here, you know, at any time. Or I hope you will come to me. Can you, when you return from this lords, come to Fullerton? It will not be in my power, Catherine. Come when you can, then. Eleanor made no answer, and Catherine's thoughts recurring to something more directly interesting. She added, thinking aloud. Monday, so soon as Monday. And you all go. Well, I am certain of. I shall be able to take leave, however. I need not go till just before you do, you know. Do not be distressed, Eleanor. I can go on Monday very well. My father and mother's, having no notice of it, is very little consequence. The general will send a servant with me, I dare say, half the way, and then I shall soon be at Salisbury. And then I am only nine miles from home. Ah, Catherine. Were it settled so, it would be somewhat less intolerable, though in such common attentions you would have received but half what you ought. But how can I tell you? Tomorrow morning is fixed for your leaving us, and not even the hour is left to your choice. The very carriage is ordered, and will be here at seven o'clock, and no servant will be offered to you. Catherine sat down, breathless and speechless. I could hardly believe my senses when I heard it, and no displeasure, no resentment that you can feel at this moment, however justly great, can be more than I myself. But I must not talk of what I felt. Ah, that I could suggest anything in extenuation. Good God, what will your father and mother say? After courting you from the protection of real friends to this, almost double distance from your home, to have you driven out of the house without the considerations even of decent civility. Dear, dear Catherine, in being the bearer of such a message, I seem guilty myself of all its insult. Yet I trust you will acquit me, for you must have been long enough in this house to see that I am but a nominal mistress of it. That my real power is nothing. Have I offended the general? said Catherine in a faltering voice. Alas! for my feelings as a daughter, all that I know, all that I answer for, is that you can have given him no just cause of offence. He certainly is greatly, very greatly, discomposed. I have seldom seen him more so. His temper is not happy, and something has now occurred to ruffle it in an uncommon degree, some disappointment, some vexation, which just at this moment seems important, but which I can hardly suppose you to have any concern in, for how was it possible? It was with pain that Catherine could speak at all, and it was only for Eleanor's sake that she attempted it. I am sure I am very sorry if I have offended him, said she. It was the last thing I would willingly have done, but do not be unhappy, Eleanor. An engagement you know must be kept. I am only sorry it was not recollected sooner, that I might have written home, but it is of very little consequence. I hope, I earnestly hope, that to your real safety it will be of none, but to everything else it is of the greatest consequence, to comfort, appearance, propriety, to your family, to the world, or your friends, the Allons, still in Bath. You might go to them with comparative ease.  Oh, the journey is nothing, do not think about that, and if we are to part a few hours sooner or later, you know, makes no difference. I can be ready by seven. Let me be cold in time. Eleanor saw that she wished to be alone, and believing it better for each that they should avoid any further conversation, now left her with. I shall see you in the morning. Catherine's swelling heart needed relief. In Eleanor's presence friendship and pride had equally restrained her tears, but no sooner was she gone, than they burst forth in torrents. Turn from the house, and in such a way, without any reason that could justify any apology that could atone for the abruptness, the rudeness, nay, the insolence of it, Henry at a distance, not able even to bid him farewell, every hope, every expectation from him suspended, at least, and who could say how long? Who could say when they might meet again? And all this, by such a man as General Tilney, so polite, so well-bred, and here to fore, so particularly fond of her. It was as incomprehensible as it was mortifying and grievous. From what it could arise, and where it would end, were considerations of equal perplexity and alarm. The manner in which it was done so grossly uncivil, hurrying her away without any reference to her own convenience, or allowing her even the appearance of choice as to the time or mode of her travelling, of two days the earliest fixed on, and of that almost the earliest hour, as if resolved to have her gone before he was stirring in the morning, that he might not be obliged even to see her. What could all this mean but an intentional affront? By some means or other she must have had the misfortune to offend him. Eleanor had wished to spare her from so painful an ocean, but Catherine could not believe it possible that any injury or any misfortune could provoke such ill-will against a person not connected, or at least not supposed to be connected with it. Heavily past the night. Sleep, or a pose that deserved the name of sleep, was out of the question. That room in which her disturbed imagination had tormented her in her first arrival was again the scene of agitated spirits and unquiet slumbers. Yet how different now the source of her inquiritude from what it had been then! How mournfully superior in reality and substance! Her anxiety had foundation in fact, her fears and probability, and with a mind so occupied in the contemplation of actual and natural evil, the solitude of her situation, the darkness of her chamber, the antiquity of the building, were felt and considered without the smallest emotion. And though the wind was high, and often produced strange and sudden noises throughout the house, she heard it all as she lay awake, hour after hour, without curiosity, or terror. Soon after six, Eleanor entered her room, eager to show attention or give assistance where it was possible, but very little remained to be done. Catherine had not loitered, she was almost dressed, and her packing almost finished. The possibility of some conciliatory message from the general occurred to Harris' daughter appeared. What so natural as that anger should pass away and repentant succeed it! And she only wanted to know how far, after what had passed, an apology might properly be received by her. But the knowledge would have been useless here. It was not called for, neither clemency nor dignity was put to the trial. Eleanor brought no message. Very little passed between them on meeting, each found her greatest safety in silence, and few and trivial with the sentences exchanged while they remained upstairs. Catherine in busy agitation completing her dress, and Eleanor with more good will and experience intent upon filling the trunk. When everything was done they left the room, Catherine lingering only half a minute behind her friend to throw a parting glance on every well-known cherished object, and went down to the breakfast parlour where breakfast was prepared. She tried to eat, as well to save herself from the pain of being urged as to make her friend comfortable. But she had no appetite, and could not swallow many mouthfuls. The contrast between this and her last breakfast in that room gave her fresh misery, and strengthened her distaste for everything before her. It was not four and twenty hours ago since they had met there to the same repast, but in circumstances how different. With what cheerful ease, what happy, though false security, had she then looked around her, enjoying everything present, and fearing little in future beyond Henry's going to Woodston for a day. Happy, happy breakfast! For Henry had been there. Henry had sat by her, and helped her. These reflections were long indulged undisturbed by any address from her companion, who sat as deep in thought as herself, and the appearance of the carriage was the first thing to startle and recall them to the present moment. Catherine's colour rose at the sight of it, and the indignity with which she was treated, striking at that instant on her mind with peculiar force, made her for a short time sensible only of resentment. Eleanor seemed now impelled into resolution and speech. You must write to me, Catherine. She cried. You must let me hear from you as soon as possible, till I know you to be safe at home I shall not have an hour's comfort. For one letter, at all risks, all hazards, I must entreat. Let me have the satisfaction of knowing that you are safe at Fullerton, and have found your family well. And then, till I can ask for your correspondence as I ought to do, I will not expect more. Direct to me at Lord Longton's, and I must ask it, under cover to Alice. No, Eleanor. If you are not allowed to receive a letter from me, I am sure I had better not write. There can be no doubt of my getting home safe. Eleanor only replied. I cannot wonder at your feelings. I will not impotune you. I will trust your own kindness apart when I am at a distance from you. But this, with the look of sorrow accompanying it, was enough to melt Catherine's pride in a moment, and she instantly said, Oh, Eleanor, I will write to you indeed. There was yet another point which Miss Tillney was anxious to settle, though somewhat embarrassed in speaking of. It had occurred to her that after so long an absence from home, Catherine might not be provided with money enough for the expenses of her journey. And, upon suggesting it to her with most affectionate offers of accommodation, it proved to be exactly the case. Catherine had never thought on the subject till that moment. But, upon examining her purse, was convinced that but for this kindness of her friend, she might have been turned from the house without even the means of getting home, and the distress in which she must have been thereby involved filling the minds of both, scarcely another word was said by either during the time of their remaining together. Short, however, was that time. The carriage was soon announced to be ready, and Catherine, instantly rising, a long and affectionate embrace supplied the place of language, and bidding each other adieu. And as they entered the hall, unable to leave the house without some mention of one whose name had not yet been spoken by either, she paused a moment, and with quivering lips just made it intelligible that she left. Her kind remembrance for her absent friend. But with this approach to his name ended all possibility of restraining her feelings, and, hiding her face as well as she could with her handkerchief, she darted across the hall, jumped into the shears, and in a moment was driven from the door. End of Chapter 28 Catherine was too wretched to be fearful. The journey in itself had no terrace for her, and she began it without either dreading its length or feeling its solitriness. Leaning back in one corner of the carriage, in a violent burst of tears, she was conveyed some miles beyond the walls of the abbey before she raised her head, and the highest point of ground within the park was almost closed from her view before she was capable of turning her eyes towards it. Unfortunately the road she now travelled was the same which only ten days ago she had so happily passed along and going to and from Woodston, and for fourteen miles every bitter feeling was rendered more severe by the review of objects on which she had first looked under impressions so different. Every mile, as it brought her nearer Woodston, added to her sufferings, and when within the distance of five she passed the turning which led to it, and thought of Henry. So near, yet so unconscious, her grief and agitation were excessive. The day which she had spent at that place had been one of the happiest of her life. It was there, it was on that day that the general had made use of such expressions with regard to Henry and herself, had so spoken and looked as if to give her the most positive conviction of his actually wishing their marriage. Yes, only ten days ago had he elated her by his pointed regard, had even confused by his two significant reference, and now what had she done, or what had she admitted to do to merit such a change. Anxious, as were all her conjectures on this point, it was not, however, the one on which she dwelt most. There is a thought yet nearer, a more prevailing, more impetuous concern. How Henry would think and feel and look when he returned on the morrow to North Anger and heard of her being gone was a question of force and interest to rise over every other, to be never ceasing, alternately irritating and soothing. It sometimes suggested the dread of his calm acquiescence, and at others was answered by the sweetest confidence in his regret and resentment. To the general, of course, he would not dare to speak, but to Eleanor, what might he not say to Eleanor about her? In this unceasing recurrence of doubts and inquiries, on any one article of which her mind was incapable of more than momentary repose, the hours passed away, and her journey advanced much faster than she looked