I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.
The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint.

This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small--_Catherine Earnshaw_, here and there varied to _Catherine Heathcliff_, and then again to _Catherine Linton_.
In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw--Heathcliff--Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres--the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.

I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee.

It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the inscription--'Catherine Earnshaw, her book,' and a date some quarter of a century back.

I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all.