Here's what I make of them.

The hardly more assured than before bit means that Catherine didn't know that stuff about the abbey before, and was daydreaming so much while Eleanor told her that she didn't take much of it in.

The gentle hint of sympathetic early rising is raillery about herself and Henry, along the lines of "Mmm-mmmm, aren't you a matching pair of early birds!" Might've been expected from Isabella, but it's a bit startling coming from General Tilney.