Austen Said:

Nothing further was said for a few minutes; and then speaking through her tears, she added,

said Henry, closing the book he had just opened;

replied Henry warmly,

said Catherine, shortly afterwards, in an agitated manner,

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.

cried Catherine:

recollecting with a blush the last line.

cried Catherine, whose second thoughts were clearer.

(blushing again that she had blushed before);

He gladly received the letter, and, having read it through, with close attention, returned it saying,

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.

was Catherine’s answer.

The brother and sister looked at each other.

said Eleanor, after a short pause,

said Eleanor with a smile.

observed Catherine,

replied Henry;

said Catherine, after a few moments’ reflection,

Catherine, by some chance or other, found her spirits 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.

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.

The very painful reflections to which this thought led could only be dispersed by

a dependence on

and by

a recollection of

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.

it occurred to her as

She proposed it to him accordingly; but he did not catch at the measure so eagerly as she had expected.

said he,

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

He

often expressed his uneasiness on this head,

feared

wished

talked

every now and then

and once or twice began even to calculate the number of young dancing people in the neighbourhood.

And it all ended, at last, in

his telling Henry one morning that

Henry was greatly honoured and very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted with the scheme.

A ball itself could not have been more welcome to Catherine than this little excursion, so strong was her desire to be acquainted with Woodston; and her heart was still bounding with joy when Henry, about an hour afterwards, came booted and greatcoated into the room where she and Eleanor were sitting, and said,

said Catherine, with a very long face.

Henry only smiled.

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.

This was the sad finale of every reflection:

she was very sure

The past, present, and future were all equally in gloom.

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.