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 married my son.”
“And this young man is—”
“Not my son, assuredly.”
Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to attribute the paternity of that bear to him.
“My name is Hareton Earnshaw,” growled the other; “and I’d counsel you to respect it!”
“I’ve shown no disrespect,” was my reply, laughing internally at the dignity with which he announced himself.
He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible.