As
to-morrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return.”

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. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by
her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why he should
say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most
unaccountable! how were people, at that rate, to be understood? Who but
Henry could have been aware of what his father was at? From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without Henry. This was the sad finale of every reflection: and Captain Tilney’s
letter would certainly come in his absence; and Wednesday she was very
sure would be wet. The past, present, and future were all equally in
gloom. Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great; and
Eleanor’s spirits always affected by Henry’s absence! what was there to
interest or amuse her? 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. What a revolution in
her ideas! she, who had so longed to be in an abbey! now, there was
nothing so charming to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a
well-connected parsonage, something like Fullerton, but better:
Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably had none. If Wednesday
should ever come! It did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably looked for. It
came—it was fine—and Catherine trod on air. By ten o’clock, the chaise
and four conveyed the trio from the abbey; and, after an agreeable
drive of almost twenty miles, they entered Woodston, a large and
populous village, in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine was ashamed
to say how pretty she thought it, as the General seemed to think an
apology necessary for the flatness of the country, and the size of the
village; but in her heart she preferred it to any place she had ever
been at, and looked with great admiration at every neat house above the
rank of a cottage, and at all the little chandler’s shops which they
passed. At the further end of the village, and tolerably disengaged
from the rest of it, stood the parsonage, a new-built substantial stone
house, with its semicircular sweep and green gates; and, as they drove
up to the door, Henry, with the friends of his solitude, a large
Newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers, was ready to receive and
make much of them. Catherine’s mind was too full, as she entered the house, for her either
to observe or to say a great deal; and, till called on by the General
for her opinion of it, she had very little idea of the room in which
she was sitting. Upon looking round it then, she perceived in a moment
that it was the most comfortable room in the world; but she was too
guarded to say so, and the coldness of her praise disappointed him. “We are not calling it a good house,” said he. “We are not comparing it
with Fullerton and Northanger—we are considering it as a mere
parsonage, small and confined, we allow, but decent, perhaps, and
habitable; and altogether not inferior to the generality; or, in other
words, I believe there are few country parsonages in England half so
good. It may admit of improvement, however. Far be it from me to say
otherwise; and anything in reason—a bow thrown out, perhaps—though,
between ourselves, if there is one thing more than another my aversion,
it is a patched-on bow.”

Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand or be pained
by it; and other subjects being studiously brought forward and
supported by Henry, at the same time that a tray full of refreshments
was introduced by his servant, the General was shortly restored to his
complacency, and Catherine to all her usual ease of spirits. The room in question was of a commodious, well-proportioned size, and
handsomely fitted up as a dining-parlour; and on their quitting it to
walk round the grounds, she was shown, first into a smaller apartment,
belonging peculiarly to the master of the house, and made unusually
tidy on the occasion; and afterwards into what was to be the
drawing-room, with the appearance of which, though unfurnished,
Catherine was delighted enough even to satisfy the General. It was a
prettily shaped room, the windows reaching to the ground, and the view
from them pleasant, though only over green meadows; and she expressed
her admiration at the moment with all the honest simplicity with which
she felt it. “Oh! why do not you fit up this room, Mr. Tilney? What a
pity not to have it fitted up! it is the prettiest room I ever saw; it
is the prettiest room in the world!”

“I trust,” said the General, with a most satisfied smile, “that it will
very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady’s taste!”

“Well, if it was my house, I should never sit anywhere else. Oh! what a
sweet little cottage there is among the trees—apple trees, too! it is
the prettiest cottage!”

“You like it—you approve it as an object—it is enough. Henry, remember
that Robinson is spoken to about it. The cottage remains.”

Such a compliment recalled all Catherine’s consciousness, and silenced
her directly; and, though pointedly applied to by the General for her
choice of the prevailing colour of the paper and hangings, nothing like
an opinion on the subject could be drawn from her. The influence of
fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great use in dissipating
these embarrassing associations; and, having reached the ornamental
part of the premises, consisting of a walk round two sides of a meadow,
on which Henry’s genius had begun to act about half a year ago, she was
sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any pleasure-ground
she had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it higher
than the green bench in the corner. A saunter into other meadows, and through part of the village, with a
visit to the stables to examine some improvements, and a charming game
of play with a litter of puppies just able to roll about, brought them
to four o’clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it could be three. At
four they were to dine, and at six to set off on their return. Never
had any day passed so quickly! She could not but observe that the abundance of the dinner did not seem
to create the smallest astonishment in the General; nay, that he was
even looking at the side-table for cold meat which was not there. His
son and daughter’s observations were of a different kind. They had
seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own, and never
before known him so little disconcerted by the melted butter’s being
oiled.