CHAPTER XVI
ABOUT twelve o'clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at
Wuthering Heights: a puny, seven-months' child; and two hours
after the mother died, having never recovered sufficient
consciousness to miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar. The latter's
distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt
on; its after-effects showed how deep the sorrow sunk. A great
addition, in my eyes, was his being left without an heir. I
bemoaned that, as I gazed on the feeble orphan; and I mentally
abused old Linton for (what was only natural partiality) the
securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son's. An
unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of
life, and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of
existence. We redeemed the neglect afterwards; but its beginning
was as friendless as its end is likely to be.
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