"Nothing further to alarm perhaps may occur the first night. After surmounting your unconquerable horror of the bed, you will retire to rest, and get a few hours' unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably have a violent storm. Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake the edifice to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring mountains—and during the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you will probably think you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest. Unable of course to repress your curiosity in so favourable a moment for indulging it, you will instantly arise, and throwing your dressing-gown around you, proceed to examine this mystery. After a very short search, you will discover a division in the tapestry so artfully constructed as to defy the minutest inspection, and on opening it, a door will immediately appear—which door, being only secured by massy bars and a padlock, you will, after a few efforts, succeed in opening—and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through it into a small vaulted room."
"No, indeed; I should be too much frightened to do any such thing."
Finally realized why I don't like Henry and Catherine as a couple -- they remind me too much of Willoughby and Marianne, except Catherine is even more naive and sheltered, and much less intellectually independent. I have been telling people for a while that Margaret Drabble is the one who argues in her introduction that they turn into Mr and Mrs Bennet, which seemed so dreadfully accurate it RUINED the book for me, but I've been through the introduction again now and Drabble says no such thing. MARGARET FORGIVE ME. Obviously some critic says it, probably in an introduction, since other people have heard the same theory, but I have no idea who it was now. sigh. (xpost)
