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Rh sometimes varied to Catharine Heathcliff, and again to Catharine Linton. Nothing save these three names was written on the ledge, but the books were covered in every fly-leaf and margin with a pen-and-ink commentary, a sort of diary, as it proved, scrawled in a childish hand. Mr. Lockwood spent the first portion of the night in deciphering this faded record; a string of childish mishaps and deficiencies dated a quarter of a century ago. Evidently this Catharine Earnshaw must have been one of Heathcliff's kin, for he figured in the narrative as her fellow-scapegrace, and the favourite scapegoat of her elder brother's wrath. After some time Mr. Lockwood fell asleep, to be troubled by harassing dreams, in one of which he fancied that this childish Catharine Earnshaw, or rather her spirit, was knocking and scratching at the fir-scraped window-pane, begging to be let in. Overcome with the intense horror of nightmare, he screamed aloud in his sleep. Waking suddenly up he found to his confusion that his yell had been heard, for Heathcliff appeared, exceedingly angry that any one had been allowed to sleep in the oak-closeted room. "If the little fiend had got in at the window she probably would have strangled me," I returned.... "Catharine Linton or Earnshaw, or however she was called—she must have been a changeling, wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years; a just punishment for her mortal transgressions, I've no doubt.

"Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of Heathcliff's with Catharine's name in the books I blushed at my inconsideration—but, without showing further consciousness of the offence, I hastened to add, 'The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the night in—.' Here I stopped afresh—I was