Disillusion. Ashamed but not cured. The housemaid's folding back her window-shutters at eight o'clock the next day was the sound which first roused Catherine; and she opened her eyes, wondering that they could ever have been closed on objects of cheerfulness; her fire was already burning, and a bright morning had succeeded the tempest of the night. Instantaneously with the consciousness of existence returned her recollection of the manuscript; and springing from her bed in the very moment of the maid's going away, she eagerly collected every scattered sheet which had burst from the roll on its falling to the ground, and flew back to enjoy the luxury of their perusal on her pillow. She now plainly saw that she must not expect a manuscript of equal length with the generality of what she had shuddered over in books; for the roll, seeming to consist entirely of small disjointed sheets, was altogether but of trifling size, and much less than she had supposed it to be at first. Her greedy eye glanced rapidly over a page. She started at its import. Could it be possible, or did not her senses play her false? An inventory of linen, in coarse and modern characters, seemed all that was before her! If the evidence of sight might be trusted, she held a washing-bill in her hand. She seized another sheet, and saw the same articles with little variation; a third, a fourth, and a fifth, presented nothing new. Shirts, stockings, cravats, and waistcoats, faced her in each. Two others, penned by the same hand, marked an expenditure scarcely more interesting. Such was the collection of papers (left, perhaps, as she could then suppose, by the negligence of a servant, in the place whence she had taken them) which had filled her with expectation and alarm, and had robbed her of half her night's rest! She felt humbled to the dust. Could not the adventure of the chest have taught her wisdom? A corner of it catching her eye as she lay seemed to rise up in judgment against her. Nothing could now be clearer than the absurdity of her recent fancies. To suppose that a manuscript of many generations back could have remained undiscovered in a room such as that, so modern, so habitable, or that she should be the first to possess the skill of unlocking a cabinet the key of which was open to all. Catherine was heartily ashamed already, but not quite cured, until she was one day caught beyond a gallery which she was exploring with the intention of verifying a shocking plot of mystery, and even murder, which she had herself conjured up. At that instant a door underneath was hastily opened, some one seemed with swift steps to ascend the stairs, by the head of which she had yet to pass before she could gain the gallery. She had no power to move. With a feeling of terror not very definable she fixed her eyes on the staircase, and in a few Foolish moments it gave Henry to her view. "Mr. Tilney!" she ex- terror. claimed, in a voice of more than common astonishment. He looked astonished too. "Good God!" she continued, not attending to his address, "how came you here? How came you up that staircase?" "How came I up that staircase!" he replied, greatly surprised. 'Because it is my nearest way from the stable-yard to my own chamber; and why should I not come up it?" Catherine recollected herself, blushed deeply, and could say no more. He seemed to be looking in her countenance for that explanation which her lips did not afford. She moved on toward the gallery. "And may I not, in my turn," said he, as he pushed back the folding doors, "ask how came you here? This passage is at least as extraordinary a road from the breakfast-parlor to your apartment as that staircase can be from the stables to mine." The encounter led to a serious explanation and a pretty severe lesson from the young man to the lady, which was sufficient to bring her wholly to her senses. Like all the heroines, she had succeeded in winning the affection and regard of Henry Tilney in spite of her romantic folly. He said amongst other things, after she had confessed the silly romance she had imagined concerning his relations : "Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English: that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws A severe lesson. One more happy ending. connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing; where every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies; and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?" They had reached the end of the gallery and with tears of shame she ran off to her own room. The visions of romance Catherine was completely awakened. were over. Strange to say, Henry Tilney continued his attentions. Some difficulties arose to separate the lovers, but it all turned out well in the end, and Catherine Morland became the happy Mrs. Henry Tilney. It would be pleasant to continue in the path which Miss Austen has opened, with her descriptions of home life and the manners of the early nineteenth century. But this is to tread on forbidden ground. My task is limited. We have been busy with the characters and figures of an earlier age, and now like ghosts we must disappear; for the dawn of a new day is beginning to show itself. Jane Austen's star we have already perceived, Maria Edgeworth's is not far off, and the great planet Walter Scott will soon with its broad glow extinguish smaller lights. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Mrs. Barbauld's British Novelists, Vols. 31, 32, 33. Mysteries of Udolpho. Forsyth's Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century. Memoir of Jane Austen. By J. E. Leigh. (Bentley, London, 1879.) INDEX. 'Evelina," 233. Evelina and Dr. Johnson, 233. 231. "Female Quixote," 11, 45, 48-72, 282. Garrick, 185, 234; Garrick and Gold- Gay, John, 34; poem to Pope, 35; George I., 22. George II., 22. Earthquake in London, 209. Goldsmith, Oliver, birth and parent- Smollett, 185; "Chinese Letters," Parody on "The Dunciad," 37. Gray, Thomas, 226; friendship with Pope, Alexander, childhood, 26; liter- Portland, Lady, 41. Radcliffe, Ann, birth and death, 292; Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Mon- Siddons, Mrs., 222. tague, 16, 36, 38. Letters of Horace Walpole, 208. Montague, Sidney, 13. "The "Sir Charles Grandison," 115. "Sir Roger de Coverley," 79, 86. Spectator, 77, 87. Strawberry Hill, 205, 213. Thrale, Mrs., 265, 266, 269. Walpole, Mrs. Anne, 13. Mrs. Radcliffe and her Followers, 292. Walpole, Horace, birth and edu- 44 Mysteries of Udolpho," 294. Nash, Beau, family, 272; life of gai- cation, 204; travels with Gray, 204; DR. |