“It is very odd! But I suppose they thought it would be too dirty for a walk.”
“And well they might, for I never saw so much dirt in my life. Walk! You could no more walk than you could fly! It has not been so dirty the whole winter; it is ankle-deep everywhere.”
Isabella corroborated it: “My dearest Catherine, you cannot form an idea of the dirt; come, you must go; you cannot refuse going now.”
“I should like to see the castle; but may we go all over it? May we go up every staircase, and into every suite of rooms?”
“Yes, yes, every hole and corner.”
“But then, if they should only be gone out for an hour till it is dryer, and call by and by?”
“Make yourself easy, there is no danger of that, for I heard Tilney hallooing to a man who was just passing by on horseback, that they were going as far as Wick Rocks.”
“Then I will. Shall I go, Mrs. Allen?”
“Just as you please, my dear.”
“Mrs. Allen, you must persuade her to go,” was the general cry. Mrs. Allen was not inattentive to it: “Well, my dear,” said she, “suppose you go.” And in two minutes they were off.