look seventeen.

Then it flashed on me - 'The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his
tea out of a basin and eating his broad with unwashed hands, may be
her husband: Heathcliff junior, of course. Here is the
consequence of being buried alive: she has thrown herself away
upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better individuals
existed! A sad pity - I must beware how I cause her to regret her
choice.' The last reflection may seem conceited; it was not. My
neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive; I knew, through
experience, that I was tolerably attractive.

'Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,' said Heathcliff,
corroborating my surmise. He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look
in her direction: a look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse
set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people,
interpret the language of his soul.

'Ah, certainly - I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the
beneficent fairy,' I remarked, turning to my neighbour.

This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched
his fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault. But he
seemed to recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a
brutal curse, muttered on my behalf: which, however, I took care
not to notice.

'Unhappy in your conjectures, sir,' observed my host; 'we neither
of us have the privilege of owning your good fairy; her mate is
dead. I said she was my daughter-in-law: therefore, she must have