Consider--if reading had not been taught, Mrs.Radcliffe would have written in vain--or perhaps might not have written at all." Catherine assented--and a very warm panegyric from her on that lady's merits closed the subject.

The Tilneys were soon engaged in another on which she had nothing to say.

They were viewing the country with the eyes of persons accustomed to drawing, and decided on its capability of being formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste.

Here Catherine was quite lost.

She knew nothing of drawing--nothing of taste: and she listened to them with an attention which brought her little profit, for they talked in phrases which conveyed scarcely any idea to her.