📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 69
1"Aye, and sadly too--for I had much rather stay." "But how can you think of such a thing, after what the General said?
2When he so particularly desired you not to give yourself any trouble, because anything would do." Henry only smiled. "I
3am sure it is quite unnecessary upon your sister's account and mine. You must know it to be so; and the General made
4such a point of your providing nothing extraordinary: besides, if he had not said half so much as he did, he has always
5such an excellent dinner at home, that sitting down to a middling one for one day could not signify." "I wish I could
6reason like you, for his sake and my own. Good-bye. As to-morrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return." He went; and,
7it being at any time a much simpler operation to Catherine to doubt her own judgment than Henry's, she was very soon
8obliged to give him credit for being right, however disagreeable to her his going. But the inexplicability of the
9General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted
10observation, already discovered; but why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most
11unaccountable! how were people, at that rate, to be understood? Who but Henry could have been aware of what his father
12was at? From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without Henry. This was the sad finale of every
13reflection: and Captain Tilney's letter would certainly come in his absence; and Wednesday she was very sure would be
14wet. The past, present, and future were all equally in gloom. Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great;
15and Eleanor's spirits always affected by Henry's absence! what was there to interest or amuse her? She was tired of the
16woods and the shrubberies--always so smooth and so dry; and the abbey in itself was no more to her now than any other
17house. The painful remembrance of the folly it had helped to nourish and perfect was the only emotion which could spring
18from a consideration of the building. What a revolution in her ideas! she, who had so longed to be in an abbey! now,
19there was nothing so charming to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a well-connected parsonage, something
20like Fullerton, but better: Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably had none. If Wednesday should ever come! It
21did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably looked for. It came--it was fine--and Catherine trod on air. By ten
22o'clock, the chaise and four conveyed the trio from the abbey; and, after an agreeable drive of almost twenty miles,
23they entered Woodston, a large and populous village, in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine was ashamed to say how
24pretty she thought it, as the General seemed to think an apology necessary for the flatness of the country, and the size
25of the village; but in her heart she preferred it to any place she had ever been at, and looked with great admiration at
26every neat house above the rank of a cottage, and at all the little chandler's shops which they passed. At the further
27end of the village, and tolerably disengaged from the rest of it, stood the parsonage, a new-built substantial stone
28house, with its semicircular sweep and green gates; and, as they drove up to the door, Henry, with the friends of his
29solitude, a large Newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers, was ready to receive and make much of them. Catherine's
30mind was too full, as she entered the house, for her either to observe or to say a great deal; and, till called on by
31the General for her opinion of it, she had very little idea of the room in which she was sitting. Upon looking round it
32then, she perceived in a moment that it was the most comfortable room in the world; but she was too guarded to say so,
33and the coldness of her praise disappointed him. "We are not calling it a good house," said he. "We are not comparing it
34with Fullerton and Northanger--we are considering it as a mere parsonage, small and confined, we allow, but decent,
35perhaps, and habitable; and altogether not inferior to the generality; or, in other words, I believe there are few
36country parsonages in England half so good. It may admit of improvement, however. Far be it from me to say otherwise;
37and anything in reason--a bow thrown out, perhaps--though, between ourselves, if there is one thing more than another my
38aversion, it is a patched-on bow." Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand or be pained by it; and
39other subjects being studiously brought forward and supported by Henry, at the same time that a tray full of
40refreshments was introduced by his servant, the General was shortly restored to his complacency, and Catherine to all
41her usual ease of spirits. The room in question was of a commodious, well-proportioned size, and handsomely fitted up as
42a dining-parlour; and on their quitting it to walk round the grounds, she was shown, first into a smaller apartment,
43belonging peculiarly to the master of the house, and made unusually tidy on the occasion; and afterwards into what was
44to be the drawing-room, with the appearance of which, though unfurnished, Catherine was delighted enough even to satisfy
45the General. It was a prettily shaped room, the windows reaching to the ground, and the view from them pleasant, though
46only over green meadows; and she expressed her admiration at the moment with all the honest simplicity with which she
47felt it. "Oh! why do not you fit up this room, Mr. Tilney? What a pity not to have it fitted up! it is the prettiest
48room I ever saw; it is the prettiest room in the world!" "I trust," said the General, with a most satisfied smile, "that
49it will very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady's taste!" "Well, if it was my house, I should never sit
50anywhere else. Oh! what a sweet little cottage there is among the trees--apple trees, too! it is the prettiest cottage!"
51"You like it--you approve it as an object--it is enough. Henry, remember that Robinson is spoken to about it. The
52cottage remains." Such a compliment recalled all Catherine's consciousness, and silenced her directly; and, though
53pointedly applied to by the General for her choice of the prevailing colour of the paper and hangings, nothing like an
54opinion on the subject could be drawn from her. The influence of fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great use
55in dissipating these embarrassing associations; and, having reached the ornamental part of the premises, consisting of a
56walk round two sides of a meadow, on which Henry's genius had begun to act about half a year ago, she was sufficiently
57recovered to think it prettier than any pleasure-ground she had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it
58higher than the green bench in the corner. A saunter into other meadows, and through part of the village, with a visit
59to the stables to examine some improvements, and a charming game of play with a litter of puppies just able to roll
60about, brought them to four o'clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it could be three. At four they were to dine, and
61at six to set off on their return. Never had any day passed so quickly! She could not but observe that the abundance of
62the dinner did not seem to create the smallest astonishment in the General; nay, that he was even looking at the
63side-table for cold meat which was not there. His son and daughter's observations were of a different kind. They had
64seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own, and never before known him so little disconcerted by the
65melted butter's being oiled. At six o'clock, the General having taken his coffee, the carriage again received them; and
66so gratifying had been the tenor of his conduct throughout the whole visit, so well assured was her mind on the subject
67of his expectations, that, could she have felt equally confident of the wishes of his son, Catherine would have quitted
68Woodston with little anxiety as to the How or the When she might return to it. CHAPTER 27 The next morning brought the
69following very unexpected letter from Isabella: Bath, April
🎉 全部完成！共 69 行