y
conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the
family having a room to himself. In fact, it formed a little closet, and
the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table. I slid back
the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and
felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in
one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This
writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of
characters, large and small--_Catherine Earnshaw_, here and there varied
to _Catherine Heathcliff_, and then again to _Catherine Linton_.

In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued
spelling over Catherine Earnshaw--Heathcliff--Linton, till my eyes
closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white
letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres--the air swarmed with
Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered
my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the
place with an odour of roasted calf-skin. I snuffed it off, and, very
ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and
spread open the injured tome on my knee. It was a Testament, in lean
type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the
inscription--'Catherine Earnshaw, her book,' and a date some quarter of a
century back. I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had
examined all. Catherine's library was select, and its state of
dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for
a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen-and-ink
commentary--at least the appearance of one--covering every morsel of
blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other
parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish
hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when
first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature
of my friend Joseph,--rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate
interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began
forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.

'An awful Sunday,' commenced the paragraph beneath. 'I wish my father
were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute--his conduct to
Heathcliff is a