“I hope I am, madam.”
“And pray, sir, what do you think of Miss Morland’s gown?”
“It is very pretty, madam,” said he, gravely examining it; “but I do not think it will wash well. I am afraid it will fray.”
“How can you,” said Catherine, laughing, “be so——” she had almost said “strange?”
“I am quite of your opinion, sir,” replied Mrs. Allen, “and so I told Miss Morland when she bought it.”
“But then you know, madam, muslin always turns to some account or other; Miss Morland will get enough out of it for a handkerchief, or a cap, or a cloak. Muslin can never be said to be wasted. I have heard my sister say so forty times, when she has been extravagant in buying more than she wanted, or careless in cutting it to pieces.”[22]
A few inquiries satisfy Mr. Allen that young Tilney is a clergyman belonging to a very respectable family in Gloucestershire.
Catherine having found a partner, is next to secure a young lady friend. Mrs. Allen stumbles unexpectedly in the Pump-room on an old acquaintance of early days in a Mrs. Thorpe, the mother of several sons and daughters.
Isabella Thorpe, the eldest daughter, on being introduced to Catherine, surprises her by exclaiming on her resemblance to her brother, and Catherine recollects that her eldest brother had spent the last week of his college vacation with the family of a member of his college, named Thorpe.
Miss Thorpe is a beautiful girl, four years older than Catherine, and more than four years better informed in knowledge of the world. She has no objection to bestow her superior knowledge—in discovering a flirtation between any gentleman and lady who only smile on each other, and pointing out a quiz[23]—on her companion. As for Catherine, she might have been a little afraid of such undreamt-of powers of observation, had it not been for what she readily accepted as the easy gaiety of Miss Thorpe’s manner, and for the gratitude inspired by the circumstance that her new friend was profuse in her expressions of delight over their acquaintance.