Mr.Mulready was quick in perceiving, from the expression of Ned's face, the annoyance which his remarks caused him, and reverted to the subject all the more frequently.

With this exception the home life was more pleasant than it had been before.
Mr.Mulready, in his satisfaction at the prospect of a new prosperity, was far more tolerant with his wife, and her spirits naturally rose with his.

She had fully shared his fears as to the threats by the Luddites, and now agreed cordially with his diatribes against the workpeople, adopting all his opinions as her own.
Ned's acquaintance with Bill Swinton had long been a grievance to her, and her constant complainings as to his love for low company had been one of the afflictions to which Ned had long been accustomed.

Now, having her husband by her side, it was a subject to which she frequently reverted.
"Why can't you leave me alone, mother ?" Ned burst out one day when Mr.Mulready had left the room.

"Can't you leave me in quiet as to my friends, when in two or three months I shall be going away?
Bill Swinton is going to enlist in the same regiment in which I am, so as to follow me all over the world.
"Would any of the fine friends you would like me to make do that?
I like all the fellows at school well enough, but there is not one of them would do a fiftieth part as much for me as Bill would.