e as
long as I do. He's as strong now as when he first came into the north;
I'm positive of that. It's only a cold that ails him, the same as papa
has. You say papa will get better, and why shouldn't he?'

'Well, well,' I cried, 'after all, we needn't trouble ourselves; for
listen, Miss,--and mind, I'll keep my word,--if you attempt going to
Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton,
and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be
revived.'

'It has been revived,' muttered Cathy, sulkily.

'Must not be continued, then,' I said.

'We'll see,' was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to
toil in the rear.

We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we had
been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no explanation
of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change my soaked
shoes and stockings; but sitting such awhile at the Heights had done the
mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during three
weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties: a calamity
never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am thankful to say,
since.

My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and
cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low. It is
wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for
complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton's room she
appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us; no amusement
usurped a minute: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play; and
she was the fondest nurse that ever watched. She must have had a warm
heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me. I said her
days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I
generally needed nothing after six o'clock, thus the evening was her own.
Poor thing! I never considered what she did with herself after tea. And
though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I remarked a
fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender fingers,
instead of fancying the line borrowed from a cold ride across the moors,
I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library.

CHAPTER XXIV

At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move about
the house. And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the evening I
asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes wer