ere bitter in the extreme. He pictured to himself the
change which would take place in his home life with Mulready the
manufacturer, the tyrant of the workmen, ruling over it. For himself he
doubted not that he would be able to hold his own.

"He had better not try on his games with me," he muttered savagely.
"Though I am only sixteen he won't find it easy to bully me; but of
course Charlie and Lucy can't defend themselves. However, I will take
care of them. Just let him be unkind to them, and see what comes of it!
As to mother, she must take what she gets, at least she deserves to.
Only to think of it! only to think of it! Oh, how bitterly she will come
to repent! How could she do it!

"And with father only dead a year! But I must stand by her, too. I
promised father to be kind to her, though he could never have guessed
how she would need it. He meant that I would only put up, without losing
my temper, with her way of always pretending to be ill, and never doing
anything but lie on the sofa and read poetry. Still, of course, it meant
I was to be kind anyhow, whatever happened, and I will try to be so,
though it is hard when she has brought such trouble upon us all.

"As for Mulready I should like to burn his mill down, or to break his
neck. I hate him: it's bad enough to be a tyrant; but to be a tyrant and
a hypocrite, too, is horrible. Well, at any rate he shan't lord it over
me;" and so at last Ned dropped off to sleep.

He was still soundly asleep when Bill Swinton came in to wake him. It
was half past six, a dull October morning, with a dreary drizzling rain.
Bill brought with him a mug of hot tea and some thick slices of bread
and butter. Ned got up and shook himself.

"What o'clock is it, Bill?"

"Half past six--the chaps went off to t' mill an hour gone; oi've kept
some tea hot for ee."

"Thank you, Bill, my head aches, and so do all my bones, and I feel as
if I hadn't been asleep all night, although, indeed, I must have slept
quite as long as usual. Can't I have a wash?"

"Yes," Bill said, "thou canst come to our place; but thou had best take
thy breakfast whilst it be hot. It will waken thee up like."

Ned drank the tea and ate a slice of bread and butter, and felt
refreshed thereat. Then he ran with Bill to his cottage and had a wash,
and then started for the town. It was eight o'clock when he reached
home. Abijah was at the door, looking down the road as he came up.

"Oh! Master Ned, how can you g