CHAPTER II
YESTERDAY afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to
spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud
to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B. - I
dine between twelve and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly
lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would
not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five) - on
mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the
room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and
coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the
flames with heaps of cinders. This spectacle drove me back
immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles' walk, arrived
at Heathcliff's garden-gate just in time to escape the first
feathery flakes of a snow-shower.
|