A ball itself could not have been more welcome to Catherine than this little excursion, so strong was her desire to be acquainted with Woodston; and her heart was still bounding with joy when Henry, about an hour afterwards, came booted and greatcoated into the room where she and Eleanor were sitting, and said, “I am come, young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for, and that we often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving ready-monied actual happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured.  Witness myself, at this present hour.  Because I am to hope for the satisfaction of seeing you at Woodston on Wednesday, which bad weather, or twenty other causes, may prevent, I must go away directly, two days before I intended it.”

“Go away!” said Catherine, with a very long face.  “And why?”

“Why!  How can you ask the question?  Because no time is to be lost in frightening my old housekeeper out of her wits, because I must go and prepare a dinner for you, to be sure.”

“Oh!  Not seriously!”

“Aye, and sadly too —­ for I had much rather stay.”

“But how can you think of such a thing, after what the general said?  When he so particularly desired you not to give yourself any trouble, because anything would do.”

Henry only smiled.  “I am sure it is quite unnecessary upon your sister’s account and mine.  You must know it to be so; and the general made such a point of your providing nothing extraordinary:  besides, if he had not said half so much as he did, he has always such an excellent dinner at home, that sitting down to a middling one for one day could not signify.”

“I wish I could reason like you, for his sake and my own.  Good-bye.  As tomorrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return.”

He went; and, it being at any time a much simpler operation to Catherine to doubt her own judgment than Henry’s, she was very soon obliged to give him credit for being right, however disagreeable to her his going.  But the inexplicability of the general’s conduct dwelt much on her thoughts.  That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable!  How were people, at that rate, to be understood?  Who but Henry could have been aware of what his father was at?

From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without Henry.  This was the sad finale of every reflection:  and Captain Tilney’s letter would certainly come in his absence; and Wednesday she was very sure would be wet.  The past, present, and future were all equally in gloom.  Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great; and Eleanor’s spirits always affected by Henry’s absence!  What was there to interest or amuse her?  She was tired of the woods and the shrubberies