“Softly, Miss,” answered she addressed; “you’ll lose nothing by being civil. Though Mr. Hareton, there, be not the master’s son, he’s your cousin: and I was never hired to serve you.”
“ He my cousin!” cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh.
“Yes, indeed,” responded her reprover.
“Oh, Ellen! don’t let them say such things,” she pursued in great trouble. “Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London: my cousin is a gentleman’s son. That my—” she stopped, and wept outright; upset at the bare notion of relationship with such a clown.
“Hush, hush!” I whispered; “people can have many cousins and of all sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it; only they needn’t keep their company, if they be disagreeable and bad.”
“He’s not—he’s not my cousin, Ellen!” she went on, gathering fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the idea.
I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual revelations; having no doubt of Linton’s approaching arrival, communicated by the former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff; and feeling as confident that Catherine’s first thought on her father’s return would be to seek an explanation of the latter’s assertion concerning her rude-bred kindred.
Hareton, recovering from his disgust at being taken for a servant, seemed moved by her distress; and, having fetched the pony round to the door, he took, to propitiate her, a fine crooked-legged terrier whelp from the kennel, and putting it into her hand, bid her whist! for he meant nought.
Pausing in her lamentations, she surveyed him with a glance of awe and horror, then burst forth anew.