Wuthering Heights Notes
One day, when young Catherine is sixteen, she and Nelly are out bird-hunting on the
moors. Nelly loses sight of Catherine for a moment, then finds her conversing with
Heathcliff and . Catherine says that she thinks she has met Hareton before and asks if
Heathcliff is his father. Heathcliff says no, but that he does have a son back at the house.
He invites Catherine and Nelly to pay a visit to Wuthering Heights to see the boy. Nelly,
always suspicious of Heathcliff, disapproves of the idea, but Catherine, not realizing that
this son is her cousin Linton, is curious to meet the boy, and Nelly cannot keep her from
going. At Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff tells Nelly that he hopes Catherine and his son
will be married someday. For their part, the cousins do not recognize one another—they
have changed much in three years—and because Linton is too sickly and self-pitying to
show Catherine around the farm, she leaves with instead, all the while mocking the
latter's lack of education and illiteracy. Heathcliff forces Linton to go after them.
At Thrushcross Grange the next day, Catherine tells her father about her visit and
demands to know why he has kept her relatives secret. tries to explain, and eventually
Catherine comes to understand his disdain for Heathcliff. But although Edgar gently
implores her not to have any contact with Linton, Catherine cannot resist exchanging
letters with the boy covertly. Nelly discovers the correspondence, and, much to
Catherine's dismay, destroys Linton's letters to her. She then sends a note to Wuthering
Heights requesting that Linton desist in his part of the correspondence. However, she
does not alert Edgar to the young people's relationship.
Chapter XXII
Edgar's health begins to fail, and, as a result, he spends less time with Catherine. Nelly
attempts in vain to fill the...
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