taking up another subject, she recommenced in a short time.
"'If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.'
"'Because you are not fit to go there,’ I answered; 'all sinners would be miserable in heaven.'
"'But it is not that. I dreamt once that I was there.'
"'I tell you, I won't hearken to your dreams, Miss Catharine. I'll go to bed,' I interrupted again.
"She laughed, and held me down, for I made a motion to leave my chair.
"'This is nothing,' cried she; 'I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be any home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights, where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and, if the wicked man in there hadn't brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now, so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.'
"Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he had heard Catharine say that it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to hear no further. My companion, sitting on the ground, was prevented by the back of the
