Austen Said:

“Yes, he does dance very well.”

“When Henry had the pleasure of seeing you before, he was in Bath but for a couple of days. He came only to engage lodgings for us.”

“Yes, an acquaintance of Mrs. Hughes.”

“Not very.”

“Yes, sometimes; but he has rid out this morning with my father.”

“Perhaps we — Yes, I think we certainly shall.”

“She had no doubt in the world of its being a very fine day, if the clouds would only go off, and the sun keep out.”

“I thought how it would be,”

“Perhaps it may, but then, my dear, it will be so dirty.”

“No,”

“I know you never mind dirt.”

“So it does indeed. If it keeps raining, the streets will be very wet.”

“They are disagreeable things to carry. I would much rather take a chair at any time.”

“Anybody would have thought so indeed. There will be very few people in the pump-room, if it rains all the morning. I hope Mr. Allen will put on his greatcoat when he goes, but I dare say he will not, for he had rather do anything in the world than walk out in a greatcoat; I wonder he should dislike it, it must be so comfortable.”

“You will not be able to go, my dear.”

“always thought it would clear up.”

“Just as you please, my dear.”

“Well, my dear,

“suppose you go.”

“I am glad your brother had so much sense; I am glad you are come back. It was a strange, wild scheme.”

“Go, by all means, my dear; only put on a white gown; Miss Tilney always wears white.”

“My dear, you tumble my gown,”

“Yes, very much so indeed. Open carriages are nasty things. A clean gown is not five minutes’ wear in them. You are splashed getting in and getting out; and the wind takes your hair and your bonnet in every direction. I hate an open carriage myself.”

“Yes, my dear, a very odd appearance indeed. I cannot bear to see it.”

“And so I should, my dear, you may depend on it; for as I told Mrs. Morland at parting, I would always do the best for you in my power. But one must not be over particular.

as your good mother says herself.

You know I wanted you, when we first came, not to buy that sprigged muslin, but you would. Young people do not like to be always thwarted.”

“That is just what I was going to say,”

“Yes,”

“and I remember that you undertook to read it aloud to me, and that when I was called away for only five minutes to answer a note, instead of waiting for me, you took the volume into the Hermitage Walk, and I was obliged to stay till you had finished it.”

“Henry,”

“you are very impertinent. Miss Morland, he is treating you exactly as he does his sister. He is forever finding fault with me, for some incorrectness of language, and now he is taking the same liberty with you. The word ‘nicest,’ as you used it, did not suit him; and you had better change it as soon as you can, or we shall be overpowered with Johnson and Blair all the rest of the way.”

“While, in fact,”

“it ought only to be applied to you, without any commendation at all. You are more nice than wise. Come, Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate over our faults in the utmost propriety of diction, while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we like best. It is a most interesting work. You are fond of that kind of reading?”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, I am fond of history.”

“Historians, you think,”

“are not happy in their flights of fancy. They display imagination without raising interest. I am fond of history — and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does not actually pass under one’s own observation; and as for the little embellishments you speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such. If a speech be well drawn up, I read it with pleasure, by whomsoever it may be made — and probably with much greater, if the production of Mr. Hume or Mr. Robertson, than if the genuine words of Caractacus, Agricola, or Alfred the Great.”

“Indeed! And of what nature?”

“Good heaven! Where could you hear of such a thing?”

“You speak with astonishing composure! But I hope your friend’s accounts have been exaggerated; and if such a design is known beforehand, proper measures will undoubtedly be taken by government to prevent its coming to effect.”

“Miss Morland, do not mind what he says; but have the goodness to satisfy me as to this dreadful riot.”

“And now, Henry,”

“that you have made us understand each other, you may as well make Miss Morland understand yourself — unless you mean to have her think you intolerably rude to your sister, and a great brute in your opinion of women in general. Miss Morland is not used to your odd ways.”

“No doubt; but that is no explanation of the present.”

“You know what you ought to do. Clear your character handsomely before her. Tell her that you think very highly of the understanding of women.”

“That is not enough. Be more serious.”

“We shall get nothing more serious from him now, Miss Morland. He is not in a sober mood. But I do assure you that he must be entirely misunderstood, if he can ever appear to say an unjust thing of any woman at all, or an unkind one of me.”

“Yes, my father can seldom be prevailed on to give the waters what I think a fair trial. He has been disappointed of some friends’ arrival whom he expected to meet here, and as he is now pretty well, is in a hurry to get home.”

“Perhaps,”