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1"This is strange indeed! i did not expect such a sight as this! an immense heavy chest! what can it hold? Why should it
2be placed here? Pushed back too, as if meant to be out of sight! i will look into it--cost me what it may, I will look
3into it--and directly too--by daylight. If I stay till evening my candle may go out." She advanced and examined it
4closely: it was of cedar, curiously inlaid with some darker wood, and raised, about a foot from the ground, on a carved
5stand of the same. The lock was silver, though tarnished from age; at each end were the imperfect remains of handles
6also of silver, broken perhaps prematurely by some strange violence; and, on the centre of the lid, was a mysterious
7cipher, in the same metal. Catherine bent over it intently, but without being able to distinguish anything with
8certainty. She could not, in whatever direction she took it, believe the last letter to be a T; and yet that it should
9be anything else in that house was a circumstance to raise no common degree of astonishment. If not originally theirs,
10by what strange events could it have fallen into the Tilney family? Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing
11greater; and seizing, with trembling hands, the hasp of the lock, she resolved at all hazards to satisfy herself at
12least as to its contents. With difficulty, for something seemed to resist her efforts, she raised the lid a few inches;
13but at that moment a sudden knocking at the door of the room made her, starting, quit her hold, and the lid closed with
14alarming violence. This ill-timed intruder was Miss Tilney's maid, sent by her mistress to be of use to Miss Morland;
15and though Catherine immediately dismissed her, it recalled her to the sense of what she ought to be doing, and forced
16her, in spite of her anxious desire to penetrate this mystery, to proceed in her dressing without further delay. Her
17progress was not quick, for her thoughts and her eyes were still bent on the object so well calculated to interest and
18alarm; and though she dared not waste a moment upon a second attempt, she could not remain many paces from the chest. At
19length, however, having slipped one arm into her gown, her toilette seemed so nearly finished that the impatience of her
20curiosity might safely be indulged. One moment surely might be spared; and, so desperate should be the exertion of her
21strength, that, unless secured by supernatural means, the lid in one moment should be thrown back. With this spirit she
22sprang forward, and her confidence did not deceive her. Her resolute effort threw back the lid, and gave to her
23astonished eyes the view of a white cotton counterpane, properly folded, reposing at one end of the chest in undisputed
24possession! She was gazing on it with the first blush of surprise when Miss Tilney, anxious for her friend's being
25ready, entered the room, and to the rising shame of having harboured for some minutes an absurd expectation, was then
26added the shame of being caught in so idle a search. "That is a curious old chest, is not it?" said Miss Tilney, as
27Catherine hastily closed it and turned away to the glass. "It is impossible to say how many generations it has been
28here. How it came to be first put in this room I know not, but I have not had it moved, because I thought it might
29sometimes be of use in holding hats and bonnets. The worst of it is that its weight makes it difficult to open. In that
30corner, however, it is at least out of the way." Catherine had no leisure for speech, being at once blushing, tying her
31gown, and forming wise resolutions with the most violent dispatch. Miss Tilney gently hinted her fear of being late; and
32in half a minute they ran downstairs together, in an alarm not wholly unfounded, for General Tilney was pacing the
33drawing-room, his watch in his hand, and having, on the very instant of their entering, pulled the bell with violence,
34ordered "Dinner to be on table directly!" Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke, and sat pale and
35breathless, in a most humble mood, concerned for his children, and detesting old chests; and the General, recovering his
36politeness as he looked at her, spent the rest of his time in scolding his daughter for so foolishly hurrying her fair
37friend, who was absolutely out of breath from haste, when there was not the least occasion for hurry in the world: but
38Catherine could not at all get over the double distress of having involved her friend in a lecture and been a great
39simpleton herself, till they were happily seated at the dinner-table, when the General's complacent smiles, and a good
40appetite of her own, restored her to peace. The dining-parlour was a noble room, suitable in its dimensions to a much
41larger drawing-room than the one in common use, and fitted up in a style of luxury and expense which was almost lost on
42the unpractised eye of Catherine, who saw little more than its spaciousness and the number of their attendants. Of the
43former, she spoke aloud her admiration; and the General, with a very gracious countenance, acknowledged that it was by
44no means an ill-sized room, and further confessed that, though as careless on such subjects as most people, he did look
45upon a tolerably large eating-room as one of the necessaries of life; he supposed, however, "that she must have been
46used to much better-sized apartments at Mr. Allen's?" "No, indeed," was Catherine's honest assurance; "Mr. Allen's
47dining-parlour was not more than half as large," and she had never seen so large a room as this in her life. The
48General's good humour increased. Why, as he had such rooms, he thought it would be simple not to make use of them; but,
49upon his honour, he believed there might be more comfort in rooms of only half their size. Mr. Allen's house, he was
50sure, must be exactly of the true size for rational happiness. The evening passed without any further disturbance, and,
51in the occasional absence of General Tilney, with much positive cheerfulness. It was only in his presence that Catherine
52felt the smallest fatigue from her journey; and even then, even in moments of languor or restraint, a sense of general
53happiness preponderated, and she could think of her friends in Bath without one wish of being with them. The night was
54stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals the whole afternoon; and by the time the party broke up, it blew and
55rained violently. Catherine, as she crossed the hall, listened to the tempest with sensations of awe; and, when she
56heard it rage round a corner of the ancient building and close with sudden fury a distant door, felt for the first time
57that she was really in an abbey. Yes, these were characteristic sounds; they brought to her recollection a countless
58variety of dreadful situations and horrid scenes, which such buildings had witnessed, and such storms ushered in; and
59most heartily did she rejoice in the happier circumstances attending her entrance within walls so solemn! She had
60nothing to dread from midnight assassins or drunken gallants. Henry had certainly been only in jest in what he had told
61her that morning. In a house so furnished, and so guarded, she could have nothing to explore or to suffer, and might go
62to her bedroom as securely as if it had been her own chamber at Fullerton. Thus wisely fortifying her mind, as she
63proceeded upstairs, she was enabled, especially on perceiving that Miss Tilney slept only two doors from her, to enter
64her room with a tolerably stout heart; and her spirits were immediately assisted by the cheerful blaze of a wood fire.
65"How much better is this," said she, as she walked to the fender--"how much better to find a fire ready lit, than to
66have to wait shivering in the cold till all the family are in bed, as so many poor girls have been obliged to do, and
67then to have a faithful old servant frightening one by coming in with a faggot! how glad I am that Northanger is what it
68is! if it had been like some other places, I do not know that, in such a night as this, I could have answered for my
69courage: but now, to be sure, there is nothing to alarm one."
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