l lives.

So far her improvement was sufficient; and in many other points she came
on exceedingly well, for though she could not write sonnets, she brought
herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her throwing
a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte of her own
composition, she could listen to other people's performances with very
little fatigue.

Her greatest deficiency was in the pencil. She had no notion of drawing,
not enough even to attempt a sketch of her lover's profile, that she
might be detected in the design. There she fell miserably short of the
true heroic height. At present she did not know her own poverty, for she
had no lover to portray. There was not one lord in the neighbourhood;
no, not even a baronet! There was not one family among their
acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at
their door; no, not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father
had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children. But when a young
lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families
cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in
her way.

Mr. Allen, who owned the chief of the property about Fullerton, the
village in Wiltshire where the Morland family lived, was ordered to Bath
for the benefit of a gouty constitution; and his lady, a good-humoured
woman, fond of Miss Morland, and probably aware that if adventures will
not befall a young lady in her own village she must seek them abroad,
invited her to go with them. Mr. and Mrs. Morland were all compliance,
and Catherine all happiness.

_II.--In the Gay City of Bath_

When the hour for departure drew nigh, the maternal anxiety of Mrs.
Morland will be naturally supposed to have been most severe. But she
knew so little of lords and baronets that she entertained no notion of
their general mischievousness, and was wholly unsuspicious of danger to
her daughter from their machinations. Her cautions were confined to
advising her to wrap up well when she came from the rooms at night, and
to try to keep some account of the money she spent.

Sally, or rather Sarah, must, from situation, be at this time the
intimate friend and confidante of her sister. It is remarkable, however,
that she neither insisted on Catherine's writing by every post, nor
exacted her promise of transmitting the character of every new
acquaintance nor a detail of every interesting convers