s almost
as pitiable as in their first avowal to himself. He blushed for the
narrow-minded counsel which he was obliged to expose. The conversation
between them at Northanger had been of the most unfriendly kind. Henry's
indignation on hearing how Catherine had been treated, on comprehending
his father's views, and being ordered to acquiesce in them, had been
open and bold. The general, accustomed on every ordinary occasion to
give the law in his family, prepared for no reluctance but of feeling,
no opposing desire that should dare to clothe itself in words, could ill
brook the opposition of his son, steady as the sanction of reason and
the dictate of conscience could make it. But, in such a cause, his
anger, though it must shock, could not intimidate Henry, who was
sustained in his purpose by a conviction of its justice. He felt himself
bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing
that heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy
retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable
anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it
prompted.

He steadily refused to accompany his father into Herefordshire, an
engagement formed almost at the moment to promote the dismissal of
Catherine, and as steadily declared his intention of offering her his
hand. The general was furious in his anger, and they parted in dreadful
disagreement. Henry, in an agitation of mind which many solitary hours
were required to compose, had returned almost instantly to Woodston,
and, on the afternoon of the following day, had begun his journey to
Fullerton.

CHAPTER 31

Mr. and Mrs. Morland's surprise on being applied to by Mr. Tilney for
their consent to his marrying their daughter was, for a few minutes,
considerable, it having never entered their heads to suspect an
attachment on either side; but as nothing, after all, could be more
natural than Catherine's being beloved, they soon learnt to consider it
with only the happy agitation of gratified pride, and, as far as they
alone were concerned, had not a single objection to start. His pleasing
manners and good sense were self-evident recommendations; and having
never heard evil of him, it was not their way to suppose any evil could
be told. Goodwill supplying the place of experience, his character
needed no attestation. "Catherine would make a sad, heedless young
housekeeper to be sure," was her mother's fo