The maidservant knocked on the door at that moment, and they went to have their dinner and talk of happier things.

Chapter Eleven

Speaking Well Enough to be Intelligible

By prearrangement, the Tilneys were to meet the Whitings in Milsom-street the next morning and proceed to the pump-room. Accordingly, Henry and Catherine set out from Pulteney-street, leaving behind a very sad MacGuffin, who had come to consider himself an indispensable part of any expedition out of doors. Fond as the Tilneys were of their pet, he could not go to the pump-room, so they left him with much petting and extravagant promises of an afternoon walk. MacGuffin lay by the fire as they departed, his chin resting on his paws and his eyes reproachful.

As they passed through Laura-place and into Argyle-street, there was a commotion on the pavement ahead of them: exclamations of surprise, laughter, heads craning for a better view. At last they saw the object of this public amusement, one that astonished them both.


General Tilney stood on the pavement, holding a lead with Lady Beauclerk’s cat on the end of it. Unlike MacGuffin, or dogs in general, Lady Josephine did not eagerly pull on the lead, seeking out the next interesting-smelling thing in her path; she meandered, she leapt up on posts and stoops, and otherwise made little progress. At the present moment she sat on her haunches in the middle of the pavement, cleaning her paw very carefully, stretching her claws apart so that her tongue could reach every place between them; she was fully absorbed in her task, and took no notice of either the general or the leering crowd.