ess and
mute.

'Rough weather!' I remarked. 'I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must
bear the consequence of your servants' leisure attendance: I had hard
work to make them hear me.'

She never opened her mouth. I stared--she stared also: at any rate, she
kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly
embarrassing and disagreeable.

'Sit down,' said the young man, gruffly. 'He'll be in soon.'

I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this
second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning
my acquaintance.

'A beautiful animal!' I commenced again. 'Do you intend parting with the
little ones, madam?'

'They are not mine,' said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than
Heathcliff himself could have replied.

'Ah, your favourites are among these?' I continued, turning to an obscure
cushion full of something like cats.

'A strange choice of favourites!' she observed scornfully.

Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and drew
closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the
evening.

'You should not have come out,' she said, rising and reaching from the
chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.

Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct
view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and
apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most
exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding;
small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging
loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in
expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my
susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn
and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there. The
canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she
turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him
in counting his gold.

'I don't want your help,' she snapped; 'I can get them for myself.'

'I beg your pardon!' I hastened to reply.

'Were you asked to tea?' she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black
frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.

'I shall be glad to have a cup,' I answered.

'Were you asked?' she repeated.

'No,' I said, half smiling. 'You are the proper person to ask me.'

She flung the tea back,