“Her father, mother, Sarah, George and Harriet, all assembled at the door to welcome her with affectionate eagerness, was a sight to awaken the best feelings of Catherine’s heart; and in the embrace of each, as she stepped from the carriage, she found herself soothed beyond anything that she had believed possible. So surrounded, so caressed, she was even happy. In the joyfulness of family love everything for a short time was subdued; and the pleasure of seeing her leaving them at first little leisure for calm curiosity, they were all seated round the tea-table, which Mrs. Morland had hurried for the comfort of the poor traveller, whose pale and jaded looks soon caught her notice, before any inquiry so direct as to demand a positive answer was addressed to her.”
Even the soreness of the explanation becomes bearable because of the true fellow-feeling with which it is heard. Besides, though the Morlands cannot but be hurt and angry on account of the insult to their daughter, they are not naturally irritable people, and do not dwell on the injury.
“It was a strange business, and he must be a very strange man,” soon become words enough to express their indignation and wonder. In fact, her father and mother are much too philosophic for Catherine’s feelings when she has to listen to such sentences as “Catherine is safe home, and our comfort does not depend on General Tilney;” “This has been a strange acquaintance, soon made and soon ended. And you were sadly out of luck, too, in your Isabella. Ah! poor James! well, we must live and learn; and the next new friends you make I hope will be better worth keeping.”
Catherine’s great comfort at this time is in walking over to the Allens, to talk with Mrs. Allen over their never-to-be-forgotten visit to Bath. If Mrs. Allen is neither very wise nor very witty, nor possessed of any penetration to speak of—at least she mentions Henry Tilney’s name occasionally, and calls him a very agreeable young man.
For two days Mrs. Morland bears with her eldest daughter’s restlessness and sadness, but on the third morning the mother remonstrates: “My dear Catherine, I am afraid you are growing quite a fine lady. I do not know when poor Richard’s cravats would be done, if he had no friend but you,[42] your head runs too much upon Bath; but there is a time for everything—a time for balls and plays, and a time for work. You have had a long run of amusement, and now you must try to be useful.”
Catherine took up her work directly, saying, in a dejected voice, that her head did not run upon Bath—much.
“Then you are fretting about General Tilney, and that is very simple of you; for ten to one whether you ever see him again. You should never fret about trifles.” After a short silence, “I hope, my Catherine, you are not getting out of humour with home, because it is not so grand as Northanger; that would be turning your visit into an evil, indeed. Wherever you are, you should always be contented, but especially at home, because there you must spend the most of your time. I did not quite like, at breakfast, to hear you talk so much about the French bread at Northanger.”
“I am sure I do not care about the bread. It is all the same to me what I eat.”
“There is a very clever essay in one of the books upstairs upon much such a subject—about young girls who have been spoilt for home by great acquaintance—the ‘Mirror,’ I think—I will look it out for you some day or other, because I am sure it will do you good.”
Do sensible, kindly mothers still select such essays as those in Henry Mackenzie’s papers, and bring them for their daughters to read, with a sanguine expectation that the essays will answer their purpose? If not, is it because girls are less docile than they were wont to be, or because they are apt to imagine that they are considerably better informed than their elders, who have been in the world twice as long?