Yes, Katharine's engagement had changed her a little.
"What a perfect daughter, or daughter-in-law!" she thought to herself, and could not help contrasting her with Cassandra, surrounded by innumerable silkworms in her bedroom.
"Yes," she continued, glancing at Katharine, with the round, greenish eyes which were as inexpressive as moist marbles, "Katharine is like the girls of my youth.

We took the serious things of life seriously." But just as she was deriving satisfaction from this thought, and was producing some of the hoarded wisdom which none of her own daughters, alas! seemed now to need, the door opened, and Mrs.Hilbery came in, or rather, did not come in, but stood in the doorway and smiled, having evidently mistaken the room.
"I never SHALL know my way about this house!" she exclaimed.

"I'm on my way to the library, and I don't want to interrupt.

You and Katharine were having a little chat ?" The presence of her sister-in-law made Lady Otway slightly uneasy.

How could she go on with what she was saying in Maggie's presence?
for she was saying something that she had never said, all these years, to Maggie herself.
"I was telling Katharine a few little commonplaces about marriage," she said, with a little laugh.