Are you
fond of an open carriage, Miss Morland?”

“Yes, very; I have hardly ever an opportunity of being in one; but I am
particularly fond of it.”

“I am glad of it; I will drive you out in mine every day.”

“Thank you,” said Catherine, in some distress, from a doubt of the
propriety of accepting such an offer. “I will drive you up Lansdown Hill to-morrow.”

“Thank you; but will not your horse want rest?”

“Rest! he has only come three and twenty miles to-day; all nonsense;
nothing ruins horses so much as rest; nothing knocks them up so soon. No, no; I shall exercise mine at the average of four hours every day
while I am here.”

“Shall you indeed!” said Catherine very seriously. “That will be forty
miles a day.”

“Forty! aye, fifty, for what I care. Well, I will drive you up Lansdown
to-morrow; mind, I am engaged.”

“How delightful that will be!” cried Isabella, turning round. “My
dearest Catherine, I quite envy you; but I am afraid, brother, you will
not have room for a third.”

“A third indeed! no, no; I did not come to Bath to drive my sisters
about; that would be a good joke, faith! morland must take care of
you.”

This brought on a dialogue of civilities between the other two; but
Catherine heard neither the particulars nor the result. Her companion’s
discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch to nothing more
than a short decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of
every woman they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as
long as she could, with all the civility and deference of the youthful
female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition
to that of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own
sex is concerned, ventured at length to vary the subject by a question
which had been long uppermost in her thoughts; it was, “Have you ever
read Udolpho, Mr. Thorpe?”

“Udolpho! oh, Lord! not I; I never read novels; I have something else
to do.”

Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologize for her
question, but he prevented her by saying, “Novels are all so full of
nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out
since Tom Jones, except The Monk; I read that t’other day; but as for
all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation.”

“I think you must like Udolpho, if you were to read it; it is so very
interesting.”

“Not I, faith! no, if I read any, it shall be Mrs. Radcliffe’s; her
novels are amusing enough; they are worth reading; some fun and nature
in _them_.”

“Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliffe,” said Catherine, with some
hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him. “No, sure; was it? Aye, I remember, so it was; I was thinking of that
other stupid book, written by that woman they make such a fuss about,
she who married the French emigrant.”

“I suppose you mean Camilla?”

“Yes, that’s the book; such unnatural stuff! an old man playing at
see-saw, I took up the first volume once and looked it over, but I soon
found it would not do; indeed I guessed what sort of stuff it must be
before I saw it: as soon as I heard she had married an emigrant, I was
sure I should never be able to get through it.”

“I have never read it.”

“You had no loss, I assure you; it is the horridest nonsense you can
imagine; there is nothing in the world in it but an old man’s playing
at see-saw and learning Latin; upon my soul there is not.”

This critique, the justness of which was unfortunately lost on poor
Catherine, brought them to the door of Mrs. Thorpe’s lodgings, and the
feelings of the discerning and unprejudiced reader of Camilla gave way
to the feelings of the dutiful and affectionate son, as they met Mrs.
Thorpe, who had descried them from above, in the passage. “Ah, Mother! How do you do?” said he, giving her a hearty shake of the hand. “Where
did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch. Here is Morland and I come to stay a few days with you, so you must
look out for a couple of good beds somewhere near.” And this address
seemed to satisfy all the fondest wishes of the mother’s heart, for she
received him with the most delighted and exulting affection. On his two
younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal
tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did, and observed that
they both looked very ugly. These manners did not please Catherine; but he was James’s friend and
Isabella’s brother; and her judgment was further bought off by
Isabella’s assuring her, when they withdrew to see the new hat, that
John thought her the most charming girl in the world, and by John’s
engaging her before they parted to dance with him that evening. Had she
been older or vainer, such attacks might have done little; but, where
youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of
reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl
in the world, and of being so very early engaged as a partner; and the
consequence was that, when the two Morlands, after sitting an hour with
the Thorpes, set off to walk together to Mr. Allen’s, and James, as the
door was closed on them, said, “Well, Catherine, how do you like my
friend Thorpe?” instead of answering, as she probably would have done,
had there been no friendship and no flattery in the case, “I do not
like him at all,” she directly replied, “I like him very much; he seems
very agreeable.”

“He is as good-natured a fellow as ever lived; a little of a rattle;
but that will recommend him to your sex, I believe: and how do you like
the rest of the family?”

“Very, very much indeed: Isabella particularly.”

“I am very glad to hear you say so; she is just the kind of young woman
I could wish to see you attached to; she has so much good sense, and is
so thoroughly unaffected and amiable; I always wanted you to know her;
and she seems very fond of you. She said the highest things in your
praise that could possibly be; and the praise of such a girl as Miss
Thorpe even you, Catherine,” taking her hand with affection, “may be
proud of.”

“Indeed I am,” she replied; “I love her exceedingly, and am delighted
to find that you like her too. You hardly mentioned anything of her
when you wrote to me after your visit there.”

“Because I thought I should soon see you myself. I hope you will be a
great deal together while you are in Bath. She is a most amiable girl;
such a superior understanding! how fond all the family are of her; she
is evidently the general favourite; and how much she must be admired in
such a place as this—is not she?”

“Yes, very much indeed, I fancy; Mr. Allen thinks her the prettiest
girl in Bath.”

“I dare say he does; and I do not know any man who is a better judge of
beauty than Mr. Allen.