Her habit therefore was thrown off with all possible haste, and she was
preparing to unpin the linen package, which the chaise-seat had
conveyed for her immediate accommodation, when her eye suddenly fell on
a large high chest, standing back in a deep recess on one side of the
fireplace. The sight of it made her start; and, forgetting everything
else, she stood gazing on it in motionless wonder, while these thoughts
crossed her:

“This is strange indeed! i did not expect such a sight as this! an
immense heavy chest! what can it hold? Why should it be placed here? Pushed back too, as if meant to be out of sight! i will look into
it—cost me what it may, I will look into it—and directly too—by
daylight. If I stay till evening my candle may go out.” She advanced
and examined it closely: it was of cedar, curiously inlaid with some
darker wood, and raised, about a foot from the ground, on a carved
stand of the same. The lock was silver, though tarnished from age; at
each end were the imperfect remains of handles also of silver, broken
perhaps prematurely by some strange violence; and, on the centre of the
lid, was a mysterious cipher, in the same metal. Catherine bent over it
intently, but without being able to distinguish anything with
certainty. She could not, in whatever direction she took it, believe
the last letter to be a _T;_ and yet that it should be anything else in
that house was a circumstance to raise no common degree of
astonishment. If not originally theirs, by what strange events could it
have fallen into the Tilney family? Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing greater; and seizing,
with trembling hands, the hasp of the lock, she resolved at all hazards
to satisfy herself at least as to its contents. With difficulty, for
something seemed to resist her efforts, she raised the lid a few
inches; but at that moment a sudden knocking at the door of the room
made her, starting, quit her hold, and the lid closed with alarming
violence. This ill-timed intruder was Miss Tilney’s maid, sent by her
mistress to be of use to Miss Morland; and though Catherine immediately
dismissed her, it recalled her to the sense of what she ought to be
doing, and forced her, in spite of her anxious desire to penetrate this
mystery, to proceed in her dressing without further delay. Her progress
was not quick, for her thoughts and her eyes were still bent on the
object so well calculated to interest and alarm; and though she dared
not waste a moment upon a second attempt, she could not remain many
paces from the chest. At length, however, having slipped one arm into
her gown, her toilette seemed so nearly finished that the impatience of
her curiosity might safely be indulged. One moment surely might be
spared; and, so desperate should be the exertion of her strength, that,
unless secured by supernatural means, the lid in one moment should be
thrown back. With this spirit she sprang forward, and her confidence
did not deceive her. Her resolute effort threw back the lid, and gave
to her astonished eyes the view of a white cotton counterpane, properly
folded, reposing at one end of the chest in undisputed possession! She was gazing on it with the first blush of surprise when Miss Tilney,
anxious for her friend’s being ready, entered the room, and to the
rising shame of having harboured for some minutes an absurd
expectation, was then added the shame of being caught in so idle a
search. “That is a curious old chest, is not it?” said Miss Tilney, as
Catherine hastily closed it and turned away to the glass. “It is
impossible to say how many generations it has been here. How it came to
be first put in this room I know not, but I have not had it moved,
because I thought it might sometimes be of use in holding hats and
bonnets. The worst of it is that its weight makes it difficult to open. In that corner, however, it is at least out of the way.”

Catherine had no leisure for speech, being at once blushing, tying her
gown, and forming wise resolutions with the most violent dispatch. Miss
Tilney gently hinted her fear of being late; and in half a minute they
ran downstairs together, in an alarm not wholly unfounded, for General
Tilney was pacing the drawing-room, his watch in his hand, and having,
on the very instant of their entering, pulled the bell with violence,
ordered “Dinner to be on table _directly!_”

Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke, and sat pale
and breathless, in a most humble mood, concerned for his children, and
detesting old chests; and the General, recovering his politeness as he
looked at her, spent the rest of his time in scolding his daughter for
so foolishly hurrying her fair friend, who was absolutely out of breath
from haste, when there was not the least occasion for hurry in the
world: but Catherine could not at all get over the double distress of
having involved her friend in a lecture and been a great simpleton
herself, till they were happily seated at the dinner-table, when the
General’s complacent smiles, and a good appetite of her own, restored
her to peace. The dining-parlour was a noble room, suitable in its
dimensions to a much larger drawing-room than the one in common use,
and fitted up in a style of luxury and expense which was almost lost on
the unpractised eye of Catherine, who saw little more than its
spaciousness and the number of their attendants. Of the former, she
spoke aloud her admiration; and the General, with a very gracious
countenance, acknowledged that it was by no means an ill-sized room,
and further confessed that, though as careless on such subjects as most
people, he did look upon a tolerably large eating-room as one of the
necessaries of life; he supposed, however, “that she must have been
used to much better-sized apartments at Mr. Allen’s?”

“No, indeed,” was Catherine’s honest assurance; “Mr. Allen’s
dining-parlour was not more than half as large,” and she had never seen
so large a room as this in her life. The General’s good humour
increased. Why, as he _had_ such rooms, he thought it would be simple
not to make use of them; but, upon his honour, he believed there might
be more comfort in rooms of only half their size. Mr. Allen’s house, he
was sure, must be exactly of the true size for rational happiness. The evening passed without any further disturbance, and, in the
occasional absence of General Tilney, with much positive cheerfulness. It was only in his presence that Catherine felt the smallest fatigue
from her journey; and even then, even in moments of languor or
restraint, a sense of general happiness preponderated, and she could
think of her friends in Bath without one wish of being with them. The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals the whole
afternoon; and by the time the party broke up, it blew and rained
violently.