Austen Said:

already did Catherine reproach herself

The strength of these feelings, however, was far from assisting her pen; and never had it been harder for her to write than in addressing Eleanor Tilney.

was an undertaking to frighten away all her powers of performance;

and, after long thought and much perplexity,

was all that she could determine on

with any confidence of safety. The money therefore which Eleanor had advanced was enclosed with little more than

observed Mrs. Morland, as the letter was finished;

Catherine coloured as she warmly answered,

Mrs. Morland was not happy in her attempt at consolation. The hope of meeting again in the course of a few years could only put into Catherine’s head what might happen within that time to make a meeting dreadful to her.

Her eyes filled with tears as she pictured her acquaintance so renewed; and

her mother,

perceiving her comfortable suggestions to have had no good effect,

proposed,

as another expedient for restoring her spirits,

that

The two houses were only a quarter of a mile apart; and, as they walked, Mrs. Morland quickly dispatched all that she felt on the score of James’s disappointment.

said she;

This was just such a summary view of the affair as Catherine could listen to; another sentence might have endangered her complaisance, and made her reply less rational; for soon were all her thinking powers swallowed up in the reflection of her own change of feelings and spirits since last she had trodden that well-known road.

She was received by the Allens with all the kindness which her unlooked-for appearance, acting on a steady affection, would naturally call forth; and great was their surprise, and warm their displeasure, on hearing how she had been treated — though Mrs. Morland’s account of it was no inflated representation, no studied appeal to their passions.

said she.

Mr. Allen expressed himself on the occasion with the reasonable resentment of a sensible friend; and Mrs. Allen thought his expressions quite good enough to be immediately made use of again by herself.

His wonder, his conjectures, and his explanations became in succession hers, with the addition of this single remark —

said Catherine, her eyes brightening at the recollection of what had first given spirit to her existence there.

Catherine could not answer; and, after a short trial of other subjects, Mrs. Allen again returned to —

As they walked home again,

Mrs. Morland endeavoured to impress on her daughter’s mind

There was a great deal of good sense in all this; but there are some situations of the human mind in which good sense has very little power; and Catherine’s feelings contradicted almost every position her mother advanced. It was upon the behaviour of these very slight acquaintance that all her present happiness depended; and while Mrs. Morland was successfully confirming her own opinions by the justness of her own representations,

Catherine was silently reflecting that

Catherine’s disposition was not naturally sedentary, nor had her habits been ever very industrious; but whatever might hitherto have been her defects of that sort, her mother could not but perceive them now to be greatly increased. She could neither sit still nor employ herself for ten minutes together, walking round the garden and orchard again and again, as if nothing but motion was voluntary; and it seemed as if she could even walk about the house rather than remain fixed for any time in the parlour. Her loss of spirits was a yet greater alteration. In her rambling and her idleness she might only be a caricature of herself; but in her silence and sadness she was the very reverse of all that she had been before.

For two days Mrs. Morland allowed it to pass even without a hint; but when a third night’s rest had neither restored her cheerfulness, improved her in useful activity, nor given her a greater inclination for needlework, she could no longer refrain from the gentle reproof of,

After a short silence —

Catherine said no more, and, with an endeavour to do right, applied to her work; but, after a few minutes, sunk again, without knowing it herself, into languor and listlessness, moving herself in her chair, from the irritation of weariness, much oftener than she moved her needle. Mrs. Morland watched the progress of this relapse; and seeing, in her daughter’s absent and dissatisfied look, the full proof of that repining spirit to which she had now begun to attribute her want of cheerfulness, hastily left the room to fetch the book in question, anxious to lose no time in attacking so dreadful a malady. It was some time before she could find what she looked for; and other family matters occurring to detain her, a quarter of an hour had elapsed ere she returned downstairs with the volume from which so much was hoped. Her avocations above having shut out all noise but what she created herself, she knew not that a visitor had arrived within the last few minutes, till, on entering the room, the first object she beheld was a young man whom she had never seen before.

With a look of much respect, he immediately rose, and being introduced to her by her conscious daughter as

with the embarrassment of real sensibility

began to apologize

acknowledging that

and

stating

He did not address himself to an uncandid judge or a resentful heart. Far from comprehending him or his sister in their father’s misconduct, Mrs. Morland had been always kindly disposed towards each, and instantly, pleased by his appearance, received him with the simple professions of unaffected benevolence;

thanking him for

assuring him that the friends of her children were always welcome there, and entreating him to say not another word of the past.

He was not ill-inclined to obey this request, for, though his heart was greatly relieved by such unlooked-for mildness, it was not just at that moment in his power to say anything to the purpose. Returning in silence to his seat, therefore, he remained for some minutes most civilly answering all Mrs. Morland’s common remarks about the weather and roads. Catherine meanwhile — the anxious, agitated, happy, feverish Catherine — said not a word; but her glowing cheek and brightened eye

made her mother trust that

and gladly therefore did she lay aside the first volume of The Mirror for a future hour.

Desirous of Mr. Morland’s assistance, as well in giving encouragement, as in finding conversation for her guest, whose embarrassment on his father’s account she earnestly pitied, Mrs. Morland had very early dispatched one of the children to summon him; but Mr. Morland was from home — and being thus without any support, at the end of a quarter of an hour she had nothing to say. After a couple of minutes’ unbroken silence,

Henry,

turning to Catherine for the first time since her mother’s entrance,

asked her,

with sudden alacrity,

And