Page 338 - WUTHERING HEIGHTS
P. 338

Wuthering Heights




                                                      Chapter XXI


                                     WE had sad work with little Cathy that day: she rose in
                                  high glee, eager to join her cousin, and such passionate
                                  tears and lamentations followed the news of his departure
                                  that Edgar himself was obliged to soothe her, by affirming
                                  he should come back soon: he added, however, ‘if I can
                                  get him’; and there were no hopes of that. This promise
                                  poorly pacified her; but time was more potent; and though
                                  still at intervals she inquired of her father when Linton
                                  would return, before she did see him again his features had
                                  waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise
                                  him.
                                     When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of
                                  Wuthering Heights, in paying business visits to
                                  Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young master got on;
                                  for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and
                                  was never to be seen. I could gather from her that he
                                  continued in weak health, and was a tiresome inmate. She
                                  said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to dislike him ever longer and
                                  worse, though he took some trouble to conceal it: he had
                                  an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at
                                  all with his sitting in the same room with him many




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