planted ourselves on a flower-plot under the drawing-room window.
The light came from thence; they had not put up the shutters, and
the curtains were only half closed. Both of us were able to look
in by standing on the basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we
saw - ah! it was beautiful - a splendid place carpeted with
crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white
ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging in silver
chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers.
Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar and his sisters had
it entirely to themselves. Shouldn't they have been happy? We
should have thought ourselves in heaven! And now, guess what your
good children were doing? Isabella - I believe she is eleven, a
year younger than Cathy - lay screaming at the farther end of the
room, shrieking as if witches were running red-hot needles into
her. Edgar stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle
of the table sat a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which,
from their mutual accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled
in two between them. The idiots! That was their pleasure! to
quarrel who should hold a heap of warm hair, and each begin to cry
because both, after struggling to get it, refused to take it. We
laughed outright at the petted things; we did despise them! When
would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted? or find
us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and sobbing, and
rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I'd not
exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar
Linton's at Thrushcross Grange - not if I might have the privilege
of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the house-
front with Hindley's blood!'

'Hush, hush!' I interrupted. 'Still you have not told me,