YESTERDAY was bright, calm, and frosty. I went to the Heights as Iproposed: my housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note fromher to her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy womanwas not conscious of anything odd in her request. The front doorstood open, but the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit;I knocked and invoked Earnshaw from among the garden-beds; heunchained it, and I entered. The fellow is as handsome a rustic asneed be seen. I took particular notice of him this time; but thenhe does his best apparently to make the least of his advantages.

I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home? He answered, No; but hewould be in at dinner-time. It was eleven o'clock, and I announcedmy intention of going in and waiting for him; at which heimmediately flung down his tools and accompanied me, in the officeof watchdog, not as a substitute for the host.

We entered together; Catherine was there, making herself useful inpreparing some vegetables for the approaching meal; she looked moresulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first. She hardlyraised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with thesame disregard to common forms of politeness as before; neverreturning my bow and good-morning by the slightest acknowledgment.

'She does not seem so amiable,' I thought, 'as Mrs. Dean wouldpersuade me to believe. She's a beauty, it is true; but not anangel.'

Earnshaw surlily bid her remove her things to the kitchen. 'Removethem yourself,' she said, pushing them from her as soon as she haddone; and retiring to a stool by the window, where she began tocarve figures of birds and beasts out of the turnip-parings in herlap. I approached her, pretending to desire a view of the garden;and, as I fancied, adroitly dropped Mrs. Dean's note on to herknee, unnoticed by Hareton - but she asked aloud, 'What is that?'And chucked it off.

'A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at theGrange,' I answered; annoyed at her exposing my kind deed, andfearful lest it should be imagined a missive of my own. She wouldgladly have gathered it up at this information, but Hareton beather; he seized and put it in his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliffshould look at it first. Thereat, Catherine silently turned herface from us, and, very stealthily, drew out her pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her eyes; and her cousin, afterstruggling awhile to keep down his softer feelings, pulled out theletter and flung it on the floor beside her, as ungraciously as hecould. Catherine caught and perused it eagerly; then she put a fewquestions to me concerning the inmates, rational and irrational, ofher former home; and gazing towards the hills, murmured insoliloquy:

'I should like to be riding Minny down there! I should like to beclimbing up there! Oh! I'm tired - I'm STALLED, Hareton!' Andshe leant her pretty head back against the sill, with half a yawnand half a sigh, and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness:neither caring nor knowing whether we remarked her.

'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said, after sitting some time mute, 'you arenot aware that I am an acquaintance of yours? so intimate that Ithink it strange you won't come and speak to me. My housekeepernever wearies of talking about and praising you; and she'll begreatly disappointed if I return with no news of or from you,except that you received her letter and said nothing!'

She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked, -

'Does Ellen like you?'

'Yes, very well,' I replied, hesitatingly.

'You must tell her,' she continued, 'that I would answer herletter, but I have no materials for writing: not even a book fromwhich I might tear a leaf.'

'No books!' I exclaimed. 'How do you contrive to live here withoutthem? if I may take the liberty to inquire. Though provided with alarge library, I'm frequently very dull at the Grange; take mybooks away, and I should be desperate!'

'I was always reading, when I had them,' said Catherine; 'and Mr.Heathcliff never reads; so he took it into his head to destroy mybooks. I have not had a glimpse of one for weeks. Only once, Isearched through Joseph's store of theology, to his greatirritation; and once, Hareton, I came upon a secret stock in yourroom - some Latin and Greek, and some tales and poetry: all oldfriends. I brought the last here - and you gathered them, as amagpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of stealing! Theyare of no use to you; or else you concealed them in the bad spiritthat, as you cannot enjoy them, nobody else shall. Perhaps YOURenvy counselled Mr. Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures? But I'vemost of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and youcannot deprive me of those!'

Earnshaw blushed crimson when his cousin made this revelation ofhis private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignantdenial of her accusations.

'Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his amount of knowledge,' Isaid, coming to his rescue. 'He is not ENVIOUS, but EMULOUS ofyour attainments. He'll be a clever scholar in a few years.'

'And he wants me to sink into a dunce, meantime,' answeredCatherine. 'Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself,and pretty blunders he makes! I wish you would repeat Chevy Chaseas you did yesterday: it was extremely funny. I heard you; and Iheard you turning over the dictionary to seek out the hard words,and then cursing because you couldn't read their explanations!'

The young man evidently thought it too bad that he should belaughed at for his ignorance, and then laughed at for trying toremove it. I had a similar notion; and, remembering Mrs. Dean'sanecdote of his first attempt at enlightening the darkness in whichhe had been reared, I observed, - 'But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we haveeach had a commencement, and each stumbled and tottered on thethreshold; had our teachers scorned instead of aiding us, we shouldstumble and totter yet.'

'Oh!' she replied, 'I don't wish to limit his acquirements: still,he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculousto me with his vile mistakes and mispronunciations! Those books,both prose and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations;and I hate to have them debased and profaned in his mouth!Besides, of all, he has selected my favourite pieces that I lovethe most to repeat, as if out of deliberate malice.'

Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute: he laboured under asevere sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy taskto suppress. I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving hisembarrassment, took up my station in the doorway, surveying theexternal prospect as I stood. He followed my example, and left theroom; but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in hishands, which he threw into Catherine's lap, exclaiming, - 'Takethem! I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again!'

'I won't have them now,' she answered. 'I shall connect them withyou, and hate them.'

She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and reada portion in the drawling tone of a beginner; then laughed, andthrew it from her. 'And listen,' she continued, provokingly,commencing a verse of an old ballad in the same fashion.

But his self-love would endure no further torment: I heard, andnot altogether disapprovingly, a manual cheek given to her saucytongue. The little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin'ssensitive though uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument wasthe only mode he had of balancing the account, and repaying itseffects on the inflictor. He afterwards gathered the books andhurled them on the fire. I read in his countenance what anguish itwas to offer that sacrifice to spleen. I fancied that as theyconsumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already imparted, andthe triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated fromthem; and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studiesalso. He had been content with daily labour and rough animalenjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn,and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higherpursuits; and instead of guarding him from one and winning him tothe other, his endeavours to raise himself had produced just thecontrary result.

'Yes that's all the good that such a brute as you can get fromthem!' cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching theconflagration with indignant eyes.

'You'd BETTER hold your tongue, now,' he answered fiercely.

And his agitation precluded further speech; he advanced hastily tothe entrance, where I made way for him to pass. But ere he hadcrossed the door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway,encountered him, and laying hold of his shoulder asked, - 'What'sto do now, my lad?'

'Naught, naught,' he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief andanger in solitude.

Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed.

'It will be odd if I thwart myself,' he muttered, unconscious thatI was behind him. 'But when I look for his father in his face, Ifind HER every day more! How the devil is he so like? I canhardly bear to see him.'

He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in. There was arestless, anxious expression in his countenance. I had neverremarked there before; and he looked sparer in person. Hisdaughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediatelyescaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone.

'I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood,' he said, inreply to my greeting; 'from selfish motives partly: I don't thinkI could readily supply your loss in this desolation. I've wonderedmore than once what brought you here.'

'An idle whim, I fear, sir,' was my answer; 'or else an idle whimis going to spirit me away. I shall set out for London next week;and I must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retainThrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it. Ibelieve I shall not live there any more.'

'Oh, indeed; you're tired of being banished from the world, areyou?' he said. 'But if you be coming to plead off paying for aplace you won't occupy, your journey is useless: I never relent inexacting my due from any one.'

'I'm coming to plead off nothing about it,' I exclaimed,considerably irritated. 'Should you wish it, I'll settle with younow,' and I drew my note-book from my pocket.

'No, no,' he replied, coolly; 'you'll leave sufficient behind tocover your debts, if you fail to return: I'm not in such a hurry.Sit down and take your dinner with us; a guest that is safe fromrepeating his visit can generally be made welcome. Catherine bringthe things in: where are you?'

Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.

'You may get your dinner with Joseph,' muttered Heathcliff, aside,'and remain in the kitchen till he is gone.'

She obeyed his directions very punctually: perhaps she had notemptation to transgress. Living among clowns and misanthropists,she probably cannot appreciate a better class of people when shemeets them.

With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, andHareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerlessmeal, and bade adieu early. I would have departed by the back way,to get a last glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; butHareton received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himselfescorted me to the door, so I could not fulfil my wish.

'How dreary life gets over in that house!' I reflected, whileriding down the road. 'What a realisation of something moreromantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. LintonHeathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her goodnurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphereof the town!'