, mother, Sarah, George, and Harriet, all assembled at the
door to welcome her with affectionate eagerness, was a sight to awaken
the best feelings of Catherine's heart; and in the embrace of each, as
she stepped from the carriage, she found herself soothed beyond anything
that she had believed possible. So surrounded, so caressed, she was even
happy! In the joyfulness of family love everything for a short time was
subdued, and the pleasure of seeing her, leaving them at first little
leisure for calm curiosity, they were all seated round the tea-table,
which Mrs. Morland had hurried for the comfort of the poor traveller,
whose pale and jaded looks soon caught her notice, before any inquiry so
direct as to demand a positive answer was addressed to her.

Reluctantly, and with much hesitation, did she then begin what might
perhaps, at the end of half an hour, be termed, by the courtesy of her
hearers, an explanation; but scarcely, within that time, could they
at all discover the cause, or collect the particulars, of her sudden
return. They were far from being an irritable race; far from any
quickness in catching, or bitterness in resenting, affronts: but here,
when the whole was unfolded, was an insult not to be overlooked, nor,
for the first half hour, to be easily pardoned. Without suffering any
romantic alarm, in the consideration of their daughter's long and lonely
journey, Mr. and Mrs. Morland could not but feel that it might have been
productive of much unpleasantness to her; that it was what they could
never have voluntarily suffered; and that, in forcing her on such
a measure, General Tilney had acted neither honourably nor
feelingly--neither as a gentleman nor as a parent. Why he had done it,
what could have provoked him to such a breach of hospitality, and so
suddenly turned all his partial regard for their daughter into actual
ill will, was a matter which they were at least as far from divining
as Catherine herself; but it did not oppress them by any means so long;
and, after a due course of useless conjecture, that "it was a strange
business, and that he must be a very strange man," grew enough for all
their indignation and wonder; though Sarah indeed still indulged in the
sweets of incomprehensibility, exclaiming and conjecturing with youthful
ardour. "My dear, you give yourself a great deal of needless trouble,"
said her mother at last; "depend upon it, it is something not at all
worth understanding."

"I ca