Miss Linton regarded her sister-in-law with indignation.

“For shame! for shame!” she repeated, angrily. “You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!”

“Ah! you won’t believe me, then?” said Catherine. “You think I speak from wicked selfishness?”

“I’m certain you do,” retorted Isabella; “and I shudder at you!”

“Good!” cried the other. “Try for yourself, if that be your spirit: I have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence.”

“And I must suffer for her egotism!” she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left the room. “All, all is against me: she has blighted my single consolation. But she uttered falsehoods, didn’t she? Mr. Heathcliff is not a fiend: he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he remember her?”