ed his ill-humour on to the moors;
not re-appearing till the family were departed for church. Fasting and
reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit. He hung about
me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed
abruptly--'Nelly, make me decent, I'm going to be good.'

'High time, Heathcliff,' I said; 'you _have_ grieved Catherine: she's
sorry she ever came home, I daresay! It looks as if you envied her,
because she is more thought of than you.'

The notion of _envying_ Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the
notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough.

'Did she say she was grieved?' he inquired, looking very serious.

'She cried when I told her you were off again this morning.'

'Well, _I_ cried last night,' he returned, 'and I had more reason to cry
than she.'

'Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty
stomach,' said I. 'Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But,
if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she
comes in. You must go up and offer to kiss her, and say--you know best
what to say; only do it heartily, and not as if you thought her converted
into a stranger by her grand dress. And now, though I have dinner to get
ready, I'll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar Linton shall look
quite a doll beside you: and that he does. You are younger, and yet,
I'll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders;
you could knock him down in a twinkling; don't you feel that you could?'

Heathcliff's face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and
he sighed.

'But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn't make him
less handsome or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin,
and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as
he will be!'

'And cried for mamma at every turn,' I added, 'and trembled if a country
lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of
rain. Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass,
and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines
between your eyes; and those thick brows, that, instead of rising arched,
sink in the middle; and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried,
who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like
devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to
raise your lids