commenced my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found
it impossible to hold it steady. 'And who showed you up into this
room?' he continued, crushing his nails into his palms, and
grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions. 'Who was
it? I've a good mind to turn them out of the house this moment?'

'It was your servant Zillah,' I replied, flinging myself on to the
floor, and rapidly resuming my garments. 'I should not care if you
did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she
wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted, at my
expense. Well, it is - swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have
reason in shutting it up, I assure you. No one will thank you for
a doze in such a den!'

'What do you mean?' asked Heathcliff, 'and what are you doing? Lie
down and finish out the night, since you ARE here; but, for
heaven's sake! don't repeat that horrid noise: nothing could
excuse it, unless you were having your throat cut!'

'If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would
have strangled me!' I returned. 'I'm not going to endure the
persecutions of your hospitable ancestors again. Was not the
Reverend Jabez Branderham akin to you on the mother's side? And
that minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called
- she must have been a changeling - wicked little soul! She told
me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just
punishment for her mortal transgressions, I've no doubt!'

Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the
association of Heathcliff's with Catherine's name in the book,