w just starting in
life. Terrible harm often results from well intentioned advice or
opinions carelessly expressed to young men by their elders; it is a
matter which few men are sufficiently careful about; but as I know that
you have no friends to consult, Ned, and as I regard you with more than
interest, I may say with affection, I think it would be well for you to
tell me all that there is in your mind before you take a step which may
wreck your whole life.

"I have been waiting for some months in hopes that you would open your
mind to me, for I have seen that you were unhappy; but it was not for me
to force your confidence."

"I don't know that there's much to tell," Ned said wearily. "Everything
has happened just as it was certain it would do. Mulready is a brute; he
ill treats my mother, he ill treats Charlie and Lucy, and he would ill
treat me if he dared."

"All this is bad, Ned," Mr. Porson said gravely; "but of course much
depends upon the amount of his ill treatment. I assume that he does not
actively ill treat your mother."

"No," Ned said with an angry look in his face; "and he'd better not."

"Yes, Ned, he had better not, no doubt," Mr. Porson said soothingly;
"but what I want to know, what it is essential I should know if I am to
give you any advice worth having, is what you mean by ill treatment--is
he rough and violent in his way with her? does he threaten her with
violence? is he coarse and brutal?"

"No," Ned said somewhat reluctantly; "he is not that, sir; he is always
snapping and snarling and finding fault."

"That is bad, Ned, but it does not amount to ill treatment. When a man
is put out in business and things go wrong with him it is unhappily too
often his custom to vent his ill temper upon innocent persons; and I
fancy from what I hear--you know in a little place like this every one's
business is more or less known--Mr. Mulready has a good deal to put him
out. He has erected new machinery and dare not put it to work, owing as
I hear--for he has lain the documents before the magistrates--for his
having received threatening letters warning him against doing so. This
is very trying to the man. Then, Ned, you will excuse my saying that
perhaps he is somewhat tried at home. It is no pleasant thing for a man
to have a young fellow like yourself in the house taking up an attitude
of constant hostility. I do not say that his conduct may or may not
justify it; but you will not deny that from the