Many were the inquiries she was eager to make of Miss Tilney; but so active were her thoughts, that when these inquiries were answered, she was hardly more assured than before, of Northanger Abbey having been a richly endowed convent at the time of the Reformation, of its having fallen into the hands of an ancestor of the Tilneys on its dissolution, of a large portion of the ancient building still making a part of the present dwelling although the rest was decayed, or of its standing low in a valley, sheltered from the north and east by rising woods of oak.

CHAPTER 18

With a mind thus full of happiness, Catherine was hardly aware that two or three days had passed away, without her seeing Isabella for more than a few minutes together.  She began first to be sensible of this, and to sigh for her conversation, as she walked along the pump-room one morning, by Mrs. Allen’s side, without anything to say or to hear; and scarcely had she felt a five minutes’ longing of friendship, before the object of it appeared, and inviting her to a secret conference, led the way to a seat.  “This is my favourite place,” said she as they sat down on a bench between the doors, which commanded a tolerable view of everybody entering at either; “it is so out of the way.”

Catherine, observing that Isabella’s eyes were continually bent towards one door or the other, as in eager expectation, and remembering how often she had been falsely accused of being arch, thought the present a fine opportunity for being really so; and therefore gaily said, “Do not be uneasy, Isabella, James will soon be here.”

“Psha!  My dear creature,” she replied, “do not think me such a simpleton as to be always wanting to confine him to my elbow.  It would be hideous to be always together; we should be the jest of the place.  And so you are going to Northanger!  I am amazingly glad of it.  It is one of the finest old places in England, I understand.  I shall depend upon a most particular description of it.”

“You shall certainly have the best in my power to give.  But who are you looking for?  Are your sisters coming?”

“I am not looking for anybody.  One’s eyes must be somewhere, and you know what a foolish trick I have of fixing mine, when my thoughts are an hundred miles off.  I am amazingly absent; I believe I am the most absent creature in the world.  Tilney says it is always the case with minds of a certain stamp.”

“But I thought, Isabella, you had something in particular to tell me?”

“Oh!  Yes, and so I have.  But here is a proof of what I was saying.  My poor head, I had quite forgot it.  Well, the thing is this:  I have just had a letter from John; you can guess the contents.”

“No, indeed, I cannot.”

“My sweet love, do not be so abominably affected.  What can he write about, but yourself?  You know he is over head and ears in love with you.”