Nelly reports that “[t]he twelve years[...]following that dismal period, were the happiest of [her] life” (137). She looks after young Cathy, who is growing up into “a real beauty in the face [...][and] [t]ill the age of thirteen, she had not once been beyond the range of the park by herself” (137). Cathy has no knowledge of Wuthering Heights nor of Heathcliff, and her curiosity about her surroundings grows as she gets older.

Isabella, while dying, has written to Edgar, asking him to come to London, “for she had much to settle, and she wished to bid him adieu” (139). As well, she hopes that Edgar will take her 12-year-old son, Linton. Edgar leaves for three weeks, and, in his absence, Nelly allows Cathy “on travels round the grounds—now on foot, and now on a pony” and soon, Cathy is spotted by a laborer, “gallop[ping] out of sight” (139). Nelly rushes to Wuthering Heights, and a servant allows her in. Nelly “beheld [her]stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking herself in a little chair that had been her mother’s when a child” (140), talking with Hareton comfortably. Nelly scolds Cathy for her betrayal of trust, and Hareton tries to defend her, explaining that Cathy was worried Nelly would “be uneasy” (141).