taste for a garden; and if she gathered
flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief--at least,
so it was conjectured from her habit of always preferring those which
she was strictly forbidden to take.

Such were her propensities; her abilities were quite as extraordinary.
She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught, and
sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally
stupid. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she
should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old
forlorn spinet; so at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and
could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters
being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to
leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the
happiest of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing was not superior;
though, whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her
mother, or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she
could in that way by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all
very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her
father; French by her mother. Her proficiency in either was not
remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could.

What a strange, unaccountable character! For with all these symptoms of
profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad
temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to
the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny. She was noisy and
wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in
the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.

Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appearances were mending:
she began to curl her hair and long for balls, her complexion improved,
her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more
animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave way to
an inclination for finery; she grew clean and she grew smart; and she
had now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark
on her personal improvement. From fifteen, indeed, to seventeen, she was
in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read
to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable
and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventfu