Previous  - next

things plain which he had before made ambiguous; and, joining to
this, the consideration that he would not really suffer his sister
and his friend to be exposed to a danger from which he might easily
preserve them, she concluded at last that he must know the carriage
to be in fact perfectly safe, and therefore would alarm herself
no longer. By him the whole matter seemed entirely forgotten; and
all the rest of his conversation, or rather talk, began and ended
with himself and his own concerns. He told her of horses which
he had bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sums; of racing
matches, in which his judgment had infallibly foretold the winner;
of shooting parties, in which he had killed more birds (though
without having one good shot) than all his companions together; and
described to her some famous day's sport, with the fox-hounds, in
which his foresight and skill in directing the dogs had repaired
the mistakes of the most experienced huntsman, and in which the
boldness of his riding, though it had never endangered his own life
for a moment, had been constantly leading others into difficulties,
which he calmly concluded had broken the necks of many.

Little as Catherine was in the habit of judging for herself, and
unfixed as were her general notions of what men ought to be, she
could not entirely repress a doubt, while she bore with the effusions
of his endless conceit, of his being altogether completely agreeable.
It was a bold surmise, for he was Isabella's brother; and she had
been assured by James that his manners would recommend him to all
her sex; but in spite of this, the extreme weariness of his company,
which crept over her before they had been out an hour, and which
continued unceasingly to increase till they stopped in Pulteney
Street again, induced her, in some small degree, to resist such high
authority, and to distrust his powers of giving universal pleasure.

When they arrived at Mrs. Allen's door, the astonishment of Isabella
was hardly to be expressed, on finding that it was too late in
the day for them to attend her friend into the house: "Past three
o'clock!" It was inconceivable, incredible, impossible! And she
would neither believe her own watch, nor her brother's, nor the
servant's; she would believe no assurance of it founded on reason
or reality, till Morland produced his watch, and ascertained the
fact; to have doubted a moment longer then would have been equally
inconceivable, incredible, and impossible; and she could only
protest, over and over again, that no two hours and a half had ever
gone off so swiftly before, as Catherine was called on to confirm;
Catherine could not tell a falsehood even to please Isabella; but
the latter was spared the misery of her friend's dissenting voice,
by not waiting for her answer. Her own feelings entirely engrossed
her; her wretchedness was most acute on finding herself obliged
to go directly home. It was ages since she had had a moment's

Previous  - next