you would say Catherine, or Cathy,' interrupted my young lady.
'Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than
anybody living. I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not come
when he returns: will he stay away many days?'

'Not many,' answered Linton; 'but he goes on to the moors frequently,
since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two
with me in his absence. Do say you will. I think I should not be
peevish with you: you'd not provoke me, and you'd always be ready to help
me, wouldn't you?'

'Yes,' said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: 'if I could only get
papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! I wish
you were my brother.'

'And then you would like me as well as your father?' observed he, more
cheerfully. 'But papa says you would love me better than him and all the
world, if you were my wife; so I'd rather you were that.'

'No, I should never love anybody better than papa,' she returned gravely.
'And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and
brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa
would be as fond of you as he is of me.'

Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they
did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father's aversion to her aunt.
I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldn't succeed till
everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted
her relation was false.

'Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,' she answered pertly.

'_My_ papa scorns yours!' cried Linton. 'He calls him a sneaking fool.'

'Yours is a wicked man,' retorted Catherine; 'and you are very naughty to
dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt
Isabella leave him as she did.'

'She didn't leave him,' said the boy; 'you sha'n't contradict me.'

'She did,' cried my young lady.

'Well, I'll tell you something!' said Linton. 'Your mother hated your
father: now then.'

'Oh!' exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue.

'And she loved mine,' added he.

'You little liar! I hate you now!' she panted, and her face grew red
with passion.

'She did! she did!' sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair,
and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other disputant,
who stood behind.

'Hush, Master Heathcliff!' I said; 'that's your father's tale, too, I
suppose.'

'It isn't: you