He answered in his vulgar accent, "It wouldn't do mitch hurt if it did;" and surveyed its legs with a smile.

I was half inclined to make it try; however, he moved off to open the door, and, as he raised the latch, he looked up to the inscription above, and said, with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and elation: "Miss Catherine! I can read yon, now." '"Wonderful," I exclaimed.

"Pray let us hear you--you _are_ grown clever!" 'He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name--"Hareton Earnshaw." '"And the figures ?" I cried, encouragingly, perceiving that he came to a dead halt.
'"I cannot tell them yet," he answered.
'"Oh, you dunce!" I said, laughing heartily at his failure.
'The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join in my mirth: whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it really was, contempt.

I settled his doubts, by suddenly retrieving my gravity and desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton, not him.

He reddened--I saw that by the moonlight--dropped his hand from the latch, and skulked off, a picture of mortified vanity.