[Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen]@TWC D-Link bookNorthanger Abbey CHAPTER 22 2/17
Shirts, stockings, cravats, and waistcoats faced her in each.
Two others, penned by the same hand, marked an expenditure scarcely more interesting, in letters, hair-powder, shoe-string, and breeches-ball. And the larger sheet, which had enclosed the rest, seemed by its first cramp line, "To poultice chestnut mare"-- a farrier's bill! Such was the collection of papers (left perhaps, as she could then suppose, by the negligence of a servant in the place whence she had taken them) which had filled her with expectation and alarm, and robbed her of half her night's rest! She felt humbled to the dust.
Could not the adventure of the chest have taught her wisdom? A corner of it, catching her eye as she lay, seemed to rise up in judgment against her.
Nothing could now be clearer than the absurdity of her recent fancies.
To suppose that a manuscript of many generations back could have remained undiscovered in a room such as that, so modern, so habitable!--Or that she should be the first to possess the skill of unlocking a cabinet, the key of which was open to all! How could she have so imposed on herself? Heaven forbid that Henry Tilney should ever know her folly! And it was in a great measure his own doing, for had not the cabinet appeared so exactly to agree with his description of her adventures, she should never have felt the smallest curiosity about it.
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