shoulder; and confounded at his favourite’s endurance of her proximity: it affected him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that night. His emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew, as he solemnly spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with dirty banknotes from his pocketbook, the produce of the day’s transactions. At length he summoned Hareton from his seat.
“Tak’ these in to t’ maister, lad,” he said, “and bide there. I’s gang up to my own rahm. This hoile’s neither mensful nor seemly for us: we mun side out and seearch another.”
“Come, Catherine,” I said, “we must ‘side out’ too: I’ve done my ironing. Are you ready to go?”
“It is not eight o’clock!” she answered, rising unwillingly.
“Hareton, I’ll leave this book upon the chimneypiece, and I’ll bring some more tomorrow.”
“Ony books that yah leave, I shall tak’ into th’ hahse,” said Joseph, “and it’ll be mitch if yah find ’em agean; soa, yah may plase yerseln!”
Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers; and, smiling as she passed Hareton, went singing upstairs: lighter of heart, I venture to say, than ever she had been under that roof before; except, perhaps, during her earliest visits to Linton.
The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly; though it encountered temporary interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point—one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed—they contrived in the end to reach it.