“Betray you!  What do you mean?”

“Nay, do not distress me.  I believe I have said too much.  Let us drop the subject.”

Catherine, in some amazement, complied; and after remaining a few moments silent, was on the point of reverting to what interested her at that time rather more than anything else in the world, Laurentina’s skeleton, when her friend prevented her by saying, “For Heaven’s sake! let us move away from this end of the room.  Do you know, there are two odious young men who have been staring at me this half-hour.  They really put me quite out of countenance.  Let us go and look at the arrivals.  They will hardly follow us there.”

Away they walked to the book; and while Isabella examined the names, it was Catherine’s employment to watch the proceedings of these alarming young men.

“They are not coming this way, are they?  I hope they are not so impertinent as to follow us.  Pray let me know if they are coming.  I am determined I will not look up.”

In a few moments Catherine, with unaffected pleasure, assured her that she need not be longer uneasy, as the gentlemen had just left the Pump-room.

“And which way are they gone?” said Isabella, turning hastily round.  “One was a very good-looking young man.”

“They went towards the churchyard.”

“Well, I am amazingly glad I have got rid of them!  And now what say you to going to Edgar’s Buildings with me, and looking at my new hat?  You said you should like to see it.”

Catherine readily agreed.  “Only,” she added, “perhaps we may overtake the two young men.”

“Oh! never mind that.  If we make haste, we shall pass by them presently, and I am dying to show you my hat.”

“But if we only wait a few minutes, there will be no danger of our seeing them at all.”

“I shall not pay them any such compliment, I assure you.  I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.”

Catherine had nothing to oppose against such reasoning; and therefore, to show the independence of Miss Thorpe, and her resolution of humbling the sex, they set off immediately, as fast as they could walk, in pursuit of the two young men.

Half a minute conducted them through the Pump-yard to the archway, opposite Union Passage; but here they were stopped.  Everybody acquainted with Bath may remember the difficulties of crossing Cheap Street at this point; it is indeed a street of so impertinent a nature, so unfortunately connected with the great London and Oxford roads, and the principal inn of the city, that a day never passes in which parties of ladies, however important their business, whether in quest of pastry, millinery, or even (as in the present case) of young men, are not detained on one side or other by carriages, horsemen, or carts.  This evil had been felt and lamented, at least three times a day, by Isabella since her residence in Bath: