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