not know it, it is so changed since it was in your charge. By the fire stood a ruffianly child, strong in limb and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his mouth.

`This is Edgar's legal nephew,' I reflected--`mine in a manner; I must shake hands, and--yes--I must kiss him. It is right to establish a good understanding at the beginning.'

I approached, and, attempting to take his chubby fist, said: `How do you do, my dear?' He replied in a jargon I did not comprehend. `Shall you and I be friends, Hareton?' was my next essay at conversation.

An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not `frame off', rewarded my perseverance.

`Hey, Throttler, lad!' whispered the little wretch, rousing a half-bred bulldog from its lair in a corner. Now, wilt tuh be ganging?' he asked authoritatively.

Love for my life urged a compliance; I stepped over the threshold to wait till the others should enter. Mr Heathcliff was nowhere visible; and Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, and requested to accompany me in, after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his nose, and replied:

`Mim! mim! mim! Did iver Christian body hear aught like it? Minching Un' munching! How can Aw tell whet ye say?'

`I say, I wish you to come with me into the house!' I cried, thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness.

`Nor nuh me! I getten summat else to do,' he answered, and continued his work; moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I'm sure, as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt.

I walked round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might show himself. After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's with all their beauty annihilated.

`What's your business here?' he demanded grimly. `Who are you?'

`My name was Isabella Linton,' I replied. `You've seen me before, sir. I'm lately married to Mr Heathcliff, and he has brought me here--I suppose by your permission.'

`Is he come back, then?' asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf.

`Yes--we came just now,' I said; `but he left me by the kitchen door; and when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the place, and frightened me off by the help of a bulldog.'

`It's well the hellish villain has kept his word!' growled my future host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering Heathcliff; and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and threats of what he would have done had the `fiend' deceived him.

I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that intention, he ordered me in, and shut and refastened the door. There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter dishes, which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust. I inquired whether I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom? Mr Earn

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