Austen Said:

“Well, nobody would have thought you had no right who saw your face.”

What could they have to say of her?

General Tilney did not like her appearance:

it was implied in his preventing her admittance to his daughter, rather than postpone his own walk a few minutes.

“How came Mr. Thorpe to know your father?”

“But how came you to know him?”

“Oh! Nonsense! How can you say so?”

there was not one of the family whom she need now fear to meet.

The evening had done more, much more, for her than could have been expected.

was very sorry, but could not go. The engagement which ought to have kept her from joining in the former attempt would make it impossible for her to accompany them now. She had that moment settled with Miss Tilney to take their proposed walk tomorrow; it was quite determined, and she would not, upon any account, retract.

“Do not urge me, Isabella. I am engaged to Miss Tilney. I cannot go.”

“No, it would not be easy. I could not do it. There has been no prior engagement.”

Was it the part of a friend thus to expose her feelings to the notice of others? Isabella appeared to her ungenerous and selfish, regardless of everything but her own gratification.

If they would only put off their scheme till Tuesday, which they might easily do, as it depended only on themselves, she could go with them, and everybody might then be satisfied.

“But why cannot Mr. Thorpe drive one of his other sisters? I dare say either of them would like to go.”

“That is a compliment which gives me no pleasure.”

“I hope I am not less so now,”

“but indeed I cannot go. If I am wrong, I am doing what I believe to be right.”

“You have not!”

“This will not do,”

“I cannot submit to this. I must run after Miss Tilney directly and set her right.”

“I do not care. Mr. Thorpe had no business to invent any such message. If I had thought it right to put it off, I could have spoken to Miss Tilney myself. This is only doing it in a ruder way; and how do I know that Mr. Thorpe has — He may be mistaken again perhaps; he led me into one act of rudeness by his mistake on Friday. Let me go, Mr. Thorpe; Isabella, do not hold me.”

“Then I will go after them,”

“wherever they are I will go after them. It does not signify talking. If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it.”

Setting her own inclination apart, to have failed a second time in her engagement to Miss Tilney, to have retracted a promise voluntarily made only five minutes before, and on a false pretence too, must have been wrong. She had not been withstanding them on selfish principles alone, she had not consulted merely her own gratification; that might have been ensured in some degree by the excursion itself, by seeing Blaize Castle; no, she had attended to what was due to others, and to her own character in their opinion.

she must speak with Miss Tilney that moment,

“I am come in a great hurry — It was all a mistake — I never promised to go — I told them from the first I could not go. — I ran away in a great hurry to explain it. — I did not care what you thought of me. — I would not stay for the servant.”

he might be sometimes depended on.

was greatly obliged; but it was quite out of her power. Mr. and Mrs. Allen would expect her back every moment.

“Oh, no; Catherine was sure they would not have the least objection, and she should have great pleasure in coming.”

walking,

with great elasticity,

whether she had been perfectly right. A sacrifice was always noble; and if she had given way to their entreaties, she should have been spared the distressing idea of a friend displeased, a brother angry, and a scheme of great happiness to both destroyed, perhaps through her means.

“No; I had just engaged myself to walk with Miss Tilney before they told me of it; and therefore you know I could not go with them, could I?”

“Dear madam,”

“then why did not you tell me so before? I am sure if I had known it to be improper, I would not have gone with Mr. Thorpe at all; but I always hoped you would tell me, if you thought I was doing wrong.”

“But this was something of real consequence; and I do not think you would have found me hard to persuade.”

whether it would not be both proper and kind in her to write to Miss Thorpe, and explain the indecorum of which she must be as insensible as herself; for she considered that Isabella might otherwise perhaps be going to Clifton the next day, in spite of what had passed.

what would the Tilneys have thought of her, if she had broken her promise to them in order to do what was wrong in itself, if she had been guilty of one breach of propriety, only to enable her to be guilty of another?

“I never look at it,”

“without thinking of the south of France.”

“Oh! No, I only mean what I have read about. It always puts me in mind of the country that Emily and her father travelled through, in The Mysteries of Udolpho. But you never read novels, I dare say?”

“Because they are not clever enough for you — gentlemen read better books.”

“I am very glad to hear it indeed, and now I shall never be ashamed of liking Udolpho myself. But I really thought before, young men despised novels amazingly.”

“Not very good, I am afraid. But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?”

“I am sure,”

“I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?”

“To say the truth, I do not much like any other.”

“That is, I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?”

“I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention. The speeches that are put into the heroes’ mouths, their thoughts and designs — the chief of all this must be invention, and invention is what delights me in other books.”