“Damn the doctor!” he interrupted, reddening. “Frances is quite right: she’ll be perfectly well by this time next week. Are you going upstairs? will you tell her that I’ll come, if she’ll promise not to talk. I left her because she would not hold her tongue; and she must⁠—tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet.”

I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw; she seemed in flighty spirits, and replied merrily, “I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there he has gone out twice, crying. Well, say I promise I won’t speak: but that does not bind me not to laugh at him!”