ting was very great, as well it might
be, since they had been contented to know nothing of each other for the
last fifteen years. Mrs. Thorpe had one great advantage as a talker over
Mrs. Allen, in a family of children; and when she had expatiated on the
talents of her sons and the beauty of her daughters, Mrs. Allen had no
similar information to give, no similar triumphs to press on the
unwilling and unbelieving ear of her friend. She was forced to sit and
to appear to listen to all these maternal effusions, and to be
introduced, along with Catherine, to the three Miss Thorpes, who proved
to be sisters of a young man who was at the same college as Catherine's
brother James. James, indeed, had actually spent the last week of the
Christmas vacation with the family near London.

The progress of the friendship thus entered into by Catherine and
Isabella, the eldest of the Miss Thorpes, was quick as its beginning was
warm; and they passed so rapidly through every gradation of increasing
tenderness that there was shortly no fresh proof of it to be given to
their friends and themselves. They called each other by their Christian
name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other's
train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a
rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still
resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up
to read novels together. One day, after they had been talking of
"Udolpho," of other "horrid" books and of their favourite complexion in
a man, they met Catherine's brother James and Isabella's brother John in
a gig. On introduction, the latter proved to be a smart young man of
middle height, who, with a plain face and ungraceful form, seemed
fearful of being too handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom, and
too much like a gentleman unless he were easy where he ought to be
civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be easy. James, of
course, was attached to Isabella. "She has so much good sense," he said,
"and is so thoroughly unaffected and amiable."

At the dance at the upper rooms which took place on the evening of the
same day, Mr. Tilney made his reappearance, and introduced his sister to
Catherine. Miss Tilney had a good figure, a pretty face, and a very
agreeable countenance. Her air, though it had not all the decided
pretension, the resolute stylishness, of Miss Thorpe's, had more real
elegance; and her manners