but
the knock was repeated: not loud, and still importunately. I put the jug
on the banister and hastened to admit him myself. The harvest moon shone
clear outside. It was not the attorney. My own sweet little mistress
sprang on my neck sobbing, 'Ellen, Ellen! Is papa alive?'

'Yes,' I cried: 'yes, my angel, he is, God be thanked, you are safe with
us again!'

She wanted to run, breathless as she was, up-stairs to Mr. Linton's room;
but I compelled her to sit down on a chair, and made her drink, and
washed her pale face, chafing it into a faint colour with my apron. Then
I said I must go first, and tell of her arrival; imploring her to say,
she should be happy with young Heathcliff. She stared, but soon
comprehending why I counselled her to utter the falsehood, she assured me
she would not complain.

I couldn't abide to be present at their meeting. I stood outside the
chamber-door a quarter of an hour, and hardly ventured near the bed,
then. All was composed, however: Catherine's despair was as silent as
her father's joy. She supported him calmly, in appearance; and he fixed
on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy.

He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood: he died so. Kissing her cheek, he
murmured,--'I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us!'
and never stirred or spoke again; but continued that rapt, radiant gaze,
till his pulse imperceptibly stopped and his soul departed. None could
have noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely without a
struggle.

Whether Catherine had spent her tears, or whether the grief were too
weighty to let them flow, she sat there dry-eyed till the sun rose: she
sat till noon, and would still have remained brooding over that deathbed,
but I insisted on her coming away and taking some repose. It was well I
succeeded in removing her, for at dinner-time appeared the lawyer, having
called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions how to behave. He
had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff: that was the cause of his delay in
obeying my master's summons. Fortunately, no thought of worldly affairs
crossed the latter's mind, to disturb him, after his daughter's arrival.

Mr. Green took upon himself to order everything and everybody about the
place. He gave all the servants but me, notice to quit. He would have
carried his delegated authority to the point of insisting that Edgar
Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in