erest he had raised to be able
to carry it farther; he could no longer command solemnity either of
subject or voice, and was obliged to entreat her to use her own fancy
in the perusal of Matilda's woes. Catherine, recollecting herself, grew
ashamed of her eagerness, and began earnestly to assure him that her
attention had been fixed without the smallest apprehension of really
meeting with what he related. "Miss Tilney, she was sure, would never
put her into such a chamber as he had described! She was not at all
afraid."

As they drew near the end of their journey, her impatience for a sight
of the abbey--for some time suspended by his conversation on subjects
very different--returned in full force, and every bend in the road was
expected with solemn awe to afford a glimpse of its massy walls of grey
stone, rising amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of the
sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high Gothic windows. But so
low did the building stand, that she found herself passing through the
great gates of the lodge into the very grounds of Northanger, without
having discerned even an antique chimney.

She knew not that she had any right to be surprised, but there was a
something in this mode of approach which she certainly had not expected.
To pass between lodges of a modern appearance, to find herself with such
ease in the very precincts of the abbey, and driven so rapidly along a
smooth, level road of fine gravel, without obstacle, alarm, or solemnity
of any kind, struck her as odd and inconsistent. She was not long
at leisure, however, for such considerations. A sudden scud of rain,
driving full in her face, made it impossible for her to observe anything
further, and fixed all her thoughts on the welfare of her new straw
bonnet; and she was actually under the abbey walls, was springing, with
Henry's assistance, from the carriage, was beneath the shelter of the
old porch, and had even passed on to the hall, where her friend and
the general were waiting to welcome her, without feeling one awful
foreboding of future misery to herself, or one moment's suspicion of any
past scenes of horror being acted within the solemn edifice. The breeze
had not seemed to waft the sighs of the murdered to her; it had wafted
nothing worse than a thick mizzling rain; and having given a good shake
to her habit, she was ready to be shown into the common drawing-room,
and capable of considering where she was.

An abbey!