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not shot: we saw its nest in the winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old ones dared not come. I made him promise he'd never shoot a lapwing after that, and he didn't. Yes, here are more! Did he shoot my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? Let me look.' 'Give over with that baby-work!' I interrupted, dragging the pillow away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its contents by handfuls. 'Lie down and shut your eyes: you're wandering. There's a mess! The down is flying about like snow.' I went here and there collecting it. 'I see in you, Nelly,' she continued dreamily, 'an aged woman: you have grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under Penistone crags, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That's what you'll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now. I'm not wandering: you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really _were_ that withered hag, and I should think I _was_ under Penistone Crags; and I'm conscious it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press shine like jet.' 'The black press? where is that?' I asked. 'You are talking in your sleep!' 'It's against the wall, as it always is,' she replied. 'It _does_ appear odd--I see a face in it!' 'There's no press in the room, and never was,' said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her. 'Don't _you_ see that face?' she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror. And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl. 'It's behind there still!' she pursued, anxiously. 'And it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! Oh! Nelly, the room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone!' I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed; for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass. 'There's nobody here!' I insisted. 'It was _yourself_, Mrs. Linton: you knew it a while since.' 'Myself!' she gasped, 'and the clock is striking twelve! It's true, then! that's dreadful!' Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes. I attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her husband; but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek
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