Welcome to sleep stories with Steph Your go-to podcast That offers you a calm and relaxing transition Into a great night's sleep It is time to relax and fully let go There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go Close your eyes And feel yourself sink into the support beneath you And let all the worries of the day Drift away This is your time and your space Take a deep breath in through your nose And let it out with a long sigh There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go Happy listening Chapter 23 An hour passed away before the general came in Spent on the part of his young guest in no very favorable consideration of his character This lengthened absence these solitary rambles did not speak a mind at ease or a conscious void of reproach At length he appeared and whatever might have been the gloom of his meditations he could still smile with them Miss Tilney understanding in part her friend's curiosity to see the house Soon revived the subject and her father being contrary to Catherine's expectations Unprovided with any pretense for further delay Beyond that of stopping five minutes to order refreshments to be in the room by their return Was at last ready to escort them They said forward and with a grandeur of air a dignified step which caught the eye But could not shake the doubts of the well-read Catherine He led the way across the hall through the common drawing room and one useless antechamber into a room Magnificent both in size and furniture The real drawing room used only with company of consequence It was very noble very grand very charming Was all that Catherine had to say for her Indiscriminating eye scarcely discerned the color of the satin and all minuteness of praise All praise that had much meaning was applied by the general The costliness or elegance of any rooms fitting up could be nothing to her She cared for no furniture of a more modern date than the 15th century When the general had satisfied his own curiosity in a close examination of every well-known ornament They proceeded into the library an apartment in its way of equal magnificence Exhibiting a collection of books on which a humble man might have looked with pride Catherine heard admired and wondered with more genuine feeling than before Gathered all she could from this storehouse of knowledge by running over the titles of half a shelf And was ready to proceed But suites of apartments did not spring up with her wishes Large as was the building she had already visited the greatest part Though on being told that with the addition of the kitchen the seven the six or seven rooms she had now seen Surrounded three sides of the court She could scarcely believe it or overcome the suspicion of there being many chambers secreted It was some relief however that they were to return to the rooms in common use By passing through a few of less importance Looking into the court which with occasional passages not wholly unintricate Connected the different sides And she was further soothed in her progress by being told that she was treading what had once been a cloister Having traces of cells pointed out and observing several doors that were neither opened nor explained to her By finding herself successfully in a billiard room and in the general's private apartment without comprehending their connection Or being able to turn a right when she left them And lastly by passing through a dark little room Owning henry's authority and strewed with his litter of books guns and great coats From the dining room of which though already seen and always to be seen at five o'clock The general could not forego the pleasure of pacing out the length for a more certain information of miss morland As to what she neither doubted nor cared for They proceeded by quick communication to the kitchen The ancient kitchen of the convent rich in the massy walls and smoke of former days And in the stoves and hot closets of the present The general's improving hand had not loitered here every modern invention to facilitate the labor of the cooks had been adopted within this their spacious theater and When the genius of others had failed his own had often produced the perfection wanted His endowments of this spot alone might at any time have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent Within the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the abbey The fourth side of the quadrangle having on account of its decaying state Been removed by the general's father and the present erected in its place All that was venerable ceased here The new building was not only new but declared itself to be so Intended only for offices and enclosed by stable yards No uniformity of architecture had been thought necessary Catherine could have reaped at the hand which had swept away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest for the purposes of mere domestic economy And would willingly have been spared the mortification of a walk through scenes so fallen had the general allowed it But if he had a vanity it was in the arrangement of his offices And as he was convinced that to a mind like miss morland's a view of the accommodation and comfort By which the labors of her inferiors were softened must always be gratifying He should make no apology for leading her on They took a slight survey of all and catherine was impressed beyond her expectation By their multiplicity in their convenience The purposes for which a few shapeless pantries and a comfortless scullery were deemed sufficient at fullerton Were here carried on in appropriate divisions commodious and roomy Abbey The number of servants continually appearing did not strike her less than the number of their offices Wherever they went some patterned girl stopped to curtsy or some footman in disobeying sneaked off Yet this was an abbey How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangements from such as she had read about?
From abbeys and castles in which Though certainly larger than northanger all the dirty work of the house was to be done by two pair of female hands at the utmost How could they get through it all had often amazed mrs Allen,
And when catherine saw what was necessary here She began to be amazed herself They returned to the hall That the chief staircase might be ascended And the beauty of its wood and ornaments of rich carving might be pointed out Having gained the top they turned in an opposite direction from the gallery in which her room lay And shortly entered into one on the same plan but superior in length and breadth Here she was shown successively into three large bed chambers With their dressing rooms most completely and handsomely fitted up Everything that money and taste could do To give comfort and elegance to apartments Had been bestowed on these As they were surveying the last the general After slightly naming a few of the distinguished characters by whom they had at times been honored Turned with a smiling countenance to catherine And ventured to hope that henceforward Some of their earliest tenants might be our friends from fullerton She felt the unexpected compliment and deeply regretted the impossibility of thinking well of a man So kindly disposed towards herself and so full of civility to all her family The gallery was terminated by folding doors Which miss tilney advancing had thrown open And passed through and seemed on the point of doing the same by the first draw on the left in another long reach of the gallery When the general coming forwards called her hastily And as catherine thought rather angrily back Demanding whether she was going What more was there to be seen he said had not miss morland already seen all that could be worth her notice And did she not suppose her friend might be glad of some refreshment after so much exercise Miss tilney drew back directly and the heavy doors were closed upon the mortified catherine Who having seen in a momentary glance beyond them a narrower passage?
More numerous openings and symptoms of a winding staircase Case Believed herself at last within the reach of something worth her notice And felt as she unwillingly paced back the gallery That she would rather be allowed to examine that end of the house Than see the finery of all the rest
