Henry is amused by Catherine’s childlike excitement and her assumption that the experience of staying at the abbey will be straight out of a novel. He sees that she hopes something dramatic or even frightening will happen, and so teases her by weaving a story out of components from several Gothic novels, along with some details drawn from the real layout of Northanger Abbey thrown in for good measure. These details are drawn from
The Mysteries of Udolpho, which both characters loved and discussed reading on their walk, and another Ann Radcliffe novel,
Romance of the Forest, as well Horace Walpole’s
Castle of Otranto. Catherine knows she is being teased, but this cannot ruin her innocent enjoyment in the scary possibility that what Henry says may happen.