"Oh! Master Ned, how can you go on so? Not a bit of sleep have I had this blessed night, and the mistress in strong hystrikes all the evening. Where have you been?"

Ned gave a grunt at the news of his mother's hysterics--a grunt which clearly expressed "served her right," but he only answered the last part of the question.

"I have been up at Varley, and slept at the schoolhouse. Bill Swinn and Polly Powlett made me up a bed and got me tea and breakfast. I am right enough."

"But you shouldn't have gone away, Master Ned, in that style, leaving us to wait and worry ourselves out of our senses."

"Do you know what she told me, Abijah? Wasn't it enough to make any fellow mad?"

"Ay, ay," the nurse said. "I know. I have seen it coming months ago; but it wasn't no good for me to speak. Ay, lad, it's a sore trouble for you, surely a sore trouble for you, and for us all; but it ain't no manner of use for you to set yourself agin it. Least said sooner mended, Master Ned; in a case like this it ain't no good your setting yourself up agin the missis. She ain't strong in some things, but she's strong enough in her will, and you ought to know by this time that what she sets her mind on she gets. It were so allus in the captain's time, and if he couldn't change her, poor patient lamb--for if ever there were a saint on arth he was that --you may be sure that you can't. So try and take it quietly, dearie. It be main hard for ye, and it ain't for me to say as it isn't; but for the sake of peace and quiet, and for the sake of the little ones, Master Ned, it's better for you to take it quiet. If I thought as it would do any good for you to make a fuss I wouldn't be agin it: but it ain't, you know, and it will be worse for you all if you sets him agin you to begin with. Now go up and see your mother, dearie, afore you goes off to school. I have just taken her up her tea."