Ned had sat with her for many hours each day, but he had indeed found it hard work.
Sometimes she wept, her tears being mingled with self reproaches that she had not been able to do more to brighten her husband's life.
Sometimes she would break off and reproach the boy bitterly for what she called his want of feeling.

At other times her thoughts seemed directed solely toward the fashion of her mourning garments, and after the funeral she drove Ned almost to madness by wanting to knew all the details of who was there and what was done, and was most indignant with him because he was able to tell her nothing, the whole scene having been as a mist to him, absorbed as he was in the thought of his father alone.
But Ned had never showed the least sign of impatience or hastiness, meeting tears, reproaches, and inquiries with the same stoical calmness and gentleness.

Still it was with a sigh of relief that he took a long breath of fresh air as he left the house and started for a ramble on the moor with his brother.

He would have avoided Varley, for he shrank even from the sympathy which Bill Swinton would give; but Bill would be away, so as it was the shortest way he took that road.

As he passed Luke Marner's cottage the door opened and Mary came down to the gate.