tepfather snarled at his wife, snapped at Lucy and
Charlie, and grumbled and growled at everything throughout the meal.
Everything that was said was wrong, and at last, having silenced his
wife and her children, the meal was completed in gloomy silence.

The two boys went into the little room off the hall which they used of
an evening to prepare their lessons for next day. Charlie, who came in
last, did not abut the door behind him.

"That is a nice man, our stepfather," Ned said in a cold fury. "His ways
get more and more pleasant every day; such an amiable, popular man, so
smiling and pleasant!"

"Oh! it's no use saying anything," Charlie said in an imploring voice,
"it only makes things worse."

"Worse!" Ned exclaimed indignantly; "how could they be worse? Well may
they call him Foxey, for foxey he is, a double faced snarling brute."

As the last word issued from Ned's lips he reeled under a tremendous box
on the ear from behind. Mr. Mulready was passing through the hall--for
his gig was waiting at the door to take him back to the mill, where
some fitters would be at work till late, repairing the damages to the
machine--when he had caught Ned's words, which were spoken at the top of
his voice.

The smoldering anger of months burst at once into a flame heightened by
the ill humor which the day's events had caused, and he burst into
the room and almost felled Ned to the ground with his swinging blow.
Recovering himself, Ned flew at him, but the boy was no match for the
man, and Mr. Mulready's passion was as fierce as his own; seizing his
throat with his left hand and forcing him back into a corner of the
room, his stepfather struck him again and again with all his force with
his right.

Charlie had run at once from the room to fetch his mother, and it was
scarcely a minute after the commencement of the outbreak that she rushed
into the room, and with a scream threw her arms round her husband.

"The young scoundrel!" Mr. Mulready exclaimed, panting, as he released
his hold of Ned; "he has been wanting a lesson for a long time, and I
have given him one at last. He called me Foxey, the young villain, and
said I was a double faced snarling brute; let him say so again and I
will knock his head off."

But Ned just at present was not in a condition to repeat his words;
breathless and half stunned he leaned in the corner, his breath came in
gasps, his face was as pale as death, his cheek was cut, there were red
mark