thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing indignation.

`Thear!' he ejaculated, `Hareton, thah willut sup thy porridge tuh neight; they'll be nowt bud lumps as big as maw nave. Thear, agean! Aw'd fling in bowl un all, if Aw wer yah! There, pale t' guilp off, un' then yah'll hae done wi't. Bang, bang. It's a marcy t' bothom isn't deaved aht!'

It was rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins; four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me, repeatedly, that `the barn was every bit as good' as I, `and every bit as wollsome', and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered at me defyingly, as he slavered into the jug.

`I shall have my supper in another room,' I said. `Have you no place you call a parlour?'

`Parlour!' he echoed sneeringly, `parlour! Nay, we've noa parlours. If yah dunnut loike wer company, there's maister's; un' if yah dunnut loike maister, there's us.

`Then I shall go upstairs!' I answered; `show me a chamber.' I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk. With great grumblings, the fellow rose, and preceded me in my ascent: we mounted to the garrets; he opening a door, now and then, to look into the apartments we passed.

`Here's a rahm,' he said, at last, flinging back a cranky board on hinges. `It's weel eneugh tuh ate a few porridge in. They's a pack o' corn i' t' corner, thear, meeterly clane; if yah're feared uh muckying yer grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o' t' top on't.'

The `rahm' was a kind of lumber-hole smelling strong of malt and grain; various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a wide, bare space in the middle.

`Why, man!' I exclaimed, facing him angrily, `this is not a place to sleep in. I wish to see my bedroom.

`Bed-rume!' he repeated, in a tone of mockery. `Yah's see all t' bed-rumes thear is--yon's mine.'

He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in being more naked about the walls, and having a large, low, curtainless bed, with an indigo-coloured quilt at one end.

`What do I want with yours?' I retorted. `I suppose Mr Heathcliff does not lodge at the top of the house, does he?'

`Oh! it's Maister Hathecliff's yah're wenting!' cried he, as if making a new discovery. `Couldn't ye uh said soa, at onst? un then, Aw mud uh telled ye, baht all this wark, ut that's just one yah cannut sea--he alIas keeps it locked, un nob'dy iver mells on't but hisseln.'

`You've a nice house, Joseph,' I could not refrain from observing, `and pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs! However, that is not to the present purpose--there are other rooms. For heaven's sake be quick, and let me settle somewhere!'

He made no reply to this adjuration; only plodding doggedly down the wooden steps, and halting before an apartment which, from that halt and the superior quality of its furniture, I conjectured to be the best one. There was a carpet: a good one, but the pattern was obliterated by dust; a fireplace hung with cut paper, dropping to pieces; a handsome oak bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and modern make; but they had evidently experienced rough usage: the valances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing