“Well, Linton,” murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed, “are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good?”
“Why didnt you come before?” he asked. “You should have come, instead of writing. Id far rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor anything else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will you” (looking at me) “step into the kitchen and see?”
I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling to run to and fro at his behest, I replied-
“I want to drink,” he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. “Zillah is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: its miserable! And Im obliged to come down here-they resolved never to hear me upstairs.”
“Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least,” he cried. “The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious beings.”
Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a 
small portion, appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.
“And are you glad to see me?” asked she, reiterating her former question, and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile.
“Yes, I am. Its something new to hear a voice like yours!” he replied. “But I have been vexed, because you wouldnt come. And papa swore it was owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing; and said you despised me; and if he had been in my place, he would be more the master of the Grange than your father by this time. But you dont despise me, do you, Miss-?”
I wish you were my brother
“I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy,” interrupted my young lady. “Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living. I dont love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not come when he returns: will he stay away many days?”
“Not many,” answered Linton; “but he goes on to the moors frequently, since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two with me in his absence. Do say you will. ”
“Yes,” said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair, “if I could only get papas consent, Id spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! ”
“And then you would like me as well as your father?” observed he, more cheerfully. “But papa says you would love me better than him and all the world, if you were my wife; so Id rather you were that.”
“No, I should never love anybody better than papa,” she returned gravely. “And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa would be as fond of you as he is of me.”
I think I should not be peevish with you: youd not provoke me, and youd always be ready to help me, wouldnt you?
Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own fathers aversion to her aunt. I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldnt succeed till everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted her relation was false.
“Yours is a wicked man,” retorted Catherine; “and you are very naughty to dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt Isabella leave him as she did.”
