t have murdered me. However, you
can go now, and mind, no chattering about what you have seen.

"And now," he continued to Ned as the door closed behind the servants,
"out of this house you go this day."

"You don't suppose I want to stay in your house," Ned said passionately.
"You don't suppose that it's any pleasure to me to stop here, seeing you
play the tyrant over my mother."

"Oh, Ned, Ned," Mrs. Mulready broke in, "how can you talk so!"

"It is true, mother, he is a tyrant to you as well as to every one
else; but I don't mean to go, I mean to stop here to protect you and the
children. He daren't turn me out; if he did, I would go and work in one
of the mills, and what would the people of Marsden say then? What would
they think of this popular, pleasant gentleman then, who has told his
wife before her children that he married her for her money? They shall
all know it, never fear, if I leave this house. I would have gone to Mr.
Simmonds and asked him to apply for a commission for me before now, for
other fellows get it as young as I am; but I have made up my mind that
it's my duty not to do so.

"I know he has been looking forward to my being out of the way, and his
being able to do just what he likes with the others, but I ain't going
to gratify him. It's plain to me that my duty at present is to take care
of you all, and though God knows how I set my mind upon going into the
army and being a soldier like my father, I will give it up if it means
leaving Charlie here under him."

"And do you suppose, sir," Mr. Mulready asked with intense bitterness,
"that I am going to keep you here doing nothing all your life, while you
are pleased to watch me?"

"No, I don't," Ned replied. "I shall get a clerkship or something in one
of the mills, and I shall have Charlie to live with me until he is old
enough to leave school, and then I will go away with him to America or
somewhere. As to mother, I can do nothing for her. I think my being here
makes it worse for her, for I believe you tyrannize over her all the
more because you think it hurts me. I know you hated me from the first
just as I hated you. As for Lucy, mother must do the best she can for
her. Even you daren't hit a girl."

"Oh, Ned, how can you go on so?" Mrs. Mulready wailed. "You are a wicked
boy to talk so."

"All right, mother," Ned replied recklessly; "if I am, I suppose I am. I
know in your eyes he can do no wrong. And I believe if he beat you, you
w