Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/189

 on, slipped with the least possible noise through the folding doors, and, without stopping to look or breathe, rushed forward to the one in question. The lock yielded to her hand, and luckily with no sullen sound that could alarm a human being. On tip-toe she entered; the room was before her; but it was some minutes before she could advance another step. She beheld what fixed her to the spot, and agitated every feature. She saw a large well-proportioned apartment, a handsome dimity bed, unoccupied, arranged with a housemaid's care, a bright Bath stove, mahogany wardrobes, and neatly painted chairs, on which the warm beams of a western sun gaily poured through two sash-windows. Catherine had expected to have her feelings worked, and worked they were. Astonishment and doubt first seized them, and a shortly succeeding ray of common sense added some bitter emotions of shame. She was sick of exploring, and desired but to be safe in her own room with her own heart only privy to its folly; and she was on the point of retreating as softly as she had entered, when the sound of footsteps, she could hardly tell where, made her pause and tremble." Thereupon Henry Tilney presents himself, having returned a day before he is expected, and is much amazed at finding Catherine there by herself. She is unable wholly to conceal from him what her delusions had been, and she gets from him, in consequence, a half lover-like, half brotherly lecture, which makes her thoroughly ashamed of herself, and as she is—au fond—a really nice girl, does her a world of good. "It was not only with herself that she was sunk, but with Henry. Her folly, which now seemed even criminal, was exposed to him, and he must despise her for ever. The