s at high-water mark, her tongue always going--singing,
laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild,
wicked slip she was--but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile,
and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I believe she meant no
harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened
that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you
might comfort her. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest
punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet
she got chided more than any of us on his account. In play, she liked
exceedingly to act the little mistress; using her hands freely, and
commanding her companions: she did so to me, but I would not bear
slapping and ordering; and so I let her know.

Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had
always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had
no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing
condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her
a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were
all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look,
and her ready words; turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule,
baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most--showing how her
pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over
Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do _her_ bidding in
anything, and _his_ only when it suited his own inclination. After
behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to
make it up at night. 'Nay, Cathy,' the old man would say, 'I cannot love
thee, thou'rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and
ask God's pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared
thee!' That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed continually
hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her
faults, and beg to be forgiven.

But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on earth.
He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the
fire-side. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the
chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all
together--I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and
Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants gen