grieving all night long, though I screamed for vexation that I couldn’t sleep.”
“Is Mr. Heathcliff out?” I inquired, perceiving that the wretched creature had no power to sympathize with his cousin’s mental tortures.
“He’s in the court,” he replied, “talking to Doctor Kenneth; who says uncle is dying, truly, at last. I’m glad, for I shall be master of the Grange after him. Catherine always spoke of it as her house. It isn’t hers! It’s mine: papa says everything she has is mine.
- All her nice books are mine; she offered to give me them, and her pretty birds, and her pony Minny, if I would get the key of our room, and let her out; but I told her she had nothing to give, they were all, all mine.
- And then she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I should have that; two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on the other uncle, when they were young.
- That was yesterday—I said they were mine, too; and tried to get them from her.
- The spiteful thing wouldn’t let me: she pushed me off, and hurt me.
- I shrieked out—that frightens her—she heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and divided the case, and gave me her mother’s portrait; the other she attempted to hide: but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained it.
- He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me; she refused, and he—he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain, and crushed it with his foot.”
“And were you pleased to see her struck?” I asked: having my designs in encouraging his talk.
“I winked,” he answered: “I wink to see my father strike a dog or a horse, he does it so hard. Yet I was glad at first—she deserved punishing for