`Give over with that baby-work!' I interrupted, dragging the pillow away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its contents by handfuls. `Lie down and shut your eyes: you're wandering. There's a mess! The down is flying about like snow.'
I went here and there collecting it.
`I see in you, Nelly,' she continued dreamily, `an aged woman: you have grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under Peniston Crag, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That's what you'll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now. I'm not wandering: you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really were that withered hag, and I should think I was under Peniston Crag; and I'm conscious it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press shine like jet.'
`The black press? where is that?' I asked. `You are talking in your sleep!'
`It's against the wall, as it always is,' she replied. `It does appear odd——I see a face in it!'来源：www.examda.com
`There's no press in the room, and never was,' said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her.
`Don't you see that face?' she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror.
And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl.
`It's behind there still!' she pursued anxiously. `And it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! Oh! Nelly, the room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone!'来源：www.examda.com
I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed: for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass.
`There's nobody here!' I insisted. `It was yourself, Mrs Linton: you knew it a while since.'
`Myself!' she gasped, `and the clock is striking twelve! It's true, then! that's dreadful!'来源：www.examda.com
Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes. I attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her husband; but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek——the shawl had dropped from the frame.
`Why, what is the matter?' cried I. `Who is coward now? Wake up! That is the glass——the mirror, Mrs Linton; and you see yourself in it, and there am I too, by your side.'
Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror gradually passed from her countenance; its paleness gave place to a glow of shame.
`Oh, dear! I thought I was at home,' she sighed. `I thought I was lying in my chamber at Wuthering Heights. Because I'm weak, my brain got confused, and I screamed unconsciously. Don t say anything; but stay with me. I dread sleeping: my dreams appal me.'
`A sound sleep would do you good, ma'am,' I answered; `and I hope this suffering will prevent your trying starving again.'
`Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house!' she went on bitterly, wringing her hands, `And that wind sounding in the firs by the lattice. Do let me feel it——it comes straight down the moor——do let me have one breath!'
To pacify her, I held the casement ajar a few seconds. A cold blast rushed through; I closed it, and returned to my post. She lay still now, her face bathed in tears. Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her spirit: our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child.
`How long is it since I shut myself in here?' she asked, suddenly reviving.
