"Forty! ay, fifty, for what I care. Well, I will drive you up Lansdown
to-morrow; mind, I am engaged."

"How delightful that will be!" cried Isabella, turning round; "my
dearest Catherine, I quite envy you; but I am afraid, brother, you will
not have room for a third."

"A third, indeed! no, no; I did not come to Bath to drive my sisters
about: that would be a good joke, faith! Morland must take care of you."

This brought on a dialogue of civilities between the other two; but
Catherine heard neither the particulars nor the result. Her companion's
discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch to nothing more than
a short, decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of
every women they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as
long as she could, with all the civility and deference of the youthful
female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition to
that of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own sex
is concerned, ventured at length to vary the subject by a question which
had been long uppermost in her thoughts. It was, "Have you ever read
'Udolpho,' Mr. Thorpe?"

"'Udolpho'! O Lord! not I: I never read novels; I have something else to
do."

Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologize for her question;
but he prevented her by saying, "Novels are all so full of nonsense and
stuff! there has not been a tolerable decent one come out since 'Tom
Jones,' except the 'Monk'; I read that t'other day: but as for all the
others, they are the stupidest things in creation."