...bring the greatest joy.

I love this about Catherine, and I find it really shocking that I didn't notice this about her the first time I read the book. Her ability to find true happiness in the smallest things is really extraordinary. I found myself very pleased on the few occasions when I could compare myself to Catherine through one of her small joys. She is a very true-to-real-life girl rather than an ideal.

I, like others here have mentioned before me, left my first reading of NA very disappointed. I found Catherine to be an insufferably thick-headed person - almost stupid. I truly wonder, now, how I ever was able to think so.

This time around, I'm finding her simple, charming, and not at all dim-witted. People with integrity and an unfailing loyalty to the truth are very rare, but Catherine has all of these things. I like her very much, and I am very proud of myself whenever I am able to stop in my reading and say, "Hey, I've done that!"