uld stand blows without winking or
shedding a tear. From the beginning he bred bad feeling in the house.
Old Earnshaw took to him strangely, and Hindley regarded him as having
usurped his father's affections. As for Heathcliff, he was insensible to
kindness. Cathy, a wild slip, with the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile,
and the lightest foot in the parish, was much too fond of Heathcliff.

Old Mr. Earnshaw died quietly in his chair by the fireside one October
evening.

Mr. Hindley, who had been to college, came home to the funeral, and set
the neighbours gossiping right and left, for he brought a wife with him.
What she was and where she was born he never informed us. She evinced a
dislike to Heathcliff, and drove him to the company of the servants, but
Cathy clung to him, and the two promised to grow up together as rude as
savages. Once Hindley shut them out for the night and they came to
Thrushcross Grange, where the Lintons took Cathy in, but would not have
anything to do with Heathcliff, the Spanish castaway, as they called
him. She stayed five weeks with the Lintons, and became very friendly
with the children, Edgar and Isabella, and when she came back was a
dignified little person, and quite a beauty.

Soon after, Hindley's son, Hareton, was born, the mother died, and the
child fell wholly into my hands, for the father grew desperate in his
sorrow, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation. His treatment of
Heathcliff now was enough to make a fiend of a saint, and daily the lad
became more savagely sullen. I could not half-tell what an infernal
house we had, till at last nobody decent came near us, except that Edgar
Linton called to see Cathy, who at fifteen was the queen of the
countryside--a haughty and headstrong creature.

One day after Edgar Linton had been over from the Grange, Cathy came
into the kitchen to me and said, "Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?
To-day Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I've given him an
answer. I accepted him, Nelly. Be quick and say whether I was wrong."

"First and foremost," I said sententiously, "do you love Mr. Edgar?"

"I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and
everything he touches, and every word he says. I love his looks, and all
his actions, and him entirely and altogether. There now!"

"Then," said I, "all seems smooth and easy. Where is the obstacle?"

"Here, and here!" replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead,