had always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her
part, had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient
in his ailing condition than he was in his prime. His peevish
reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him: she was
never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she
defying us with her bold, saucy look, and her ready words; turning
Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just
what her father hated most - showing how her pretended insolence,
which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his
kindness: how the boy would do HER bidding in anything, and HIS
only when it suited his own inclination. After behaving as badly
as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at
night. 'Nay, Cathy,' the old man would say, 'I cannot love thee,
thou'rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and
ask God's pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever
reared thee!' That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed
continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she
was sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven.

But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on
earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by
the fire-side. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared
in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold,
and we were all together - I, a little removed from the hearth,
busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table
(for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work
was done). Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she
leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the
floor with his head in her lap. I remember the master, before he
fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair - it pleased him rarely