one: I'm going to tell it--but take care not to smile at any part of it.'

'Oh! don't, Miss Catherine!' I cried. 'We're dismal enough without
conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us. Come, come, be merry and
like yourself! Look at little Hareton! _he's_ dreaming nothing dreary.
How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!'

'Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his solitude! You remember
him, I daresay, when he was just such another as that chubby thing:
nearly as young and innocent. However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to
listen: it's not long; and I've no power to be merry to-night.'

'I won't hear it, I won't hear it!' I repeated, hastily.

I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had an
unusual gloom in her aspect, that made me dread something from which I
might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe. She was
vexed, but she did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject,
she recommenced in a short time.

'If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.'

'Because you are not fit to go there,' I answered. 'All sinners would be
miserable in heaven.'

'But it is not for that. I dreamt once that I was there.'

'I tell you I won't hearken to your dreams, Miss Catherine! I'll go to
bed,' I interrupted again.

She laughed, and held me down; for I made a motion to leave my chair.

'This is nothing,' cried she: 'I was only going to say that heaven did
not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to
earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the
middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing
for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've
no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and
if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't
have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he
shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome,
Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are
made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a
moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.'

Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence. Having
noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the
bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he heard
Catherine say it would degrade her to