chair, and was caught by Clement as he fainted away; so much to the terror of Lance, that in three minutes' space he had broken in on Mr. Rugg's dinner with a peremptory summons. By the time he crept into the room behind the doctor, he saw Felix on the sofa, white as a sheet, with closed eyes and drawn brow, Clement standing ready with a roll of wadding, and Wilmet, having more gently removed the shirtsleeve, regarding the injury with some perplexity, increased by the tearful Sibby's voluble counsels.

She welcomed the arrival with the anxious inquiry, 'O Mr. Rugg! I am so glad! Should the cotton touch where the skin is broken?—Here—inside his elbow and hand.'

'Broken! You have been tearing off the clothes, instead of cutting them! I thought you knew better, Miss Underwood.'

'It was my own doing,' murmured Felix, so faintly, that Mr. Rugg, with his usual roughness, scolded at his not having had some brandy at once, and then at there being none nearer than the Fortinbras Arms, whence Clement brought some in about the time that a grand butler would have taken to produce it. Felix choked at it like a child, but it brought back his strength; and Wilmet and Clement were assistants too handy to give much occasion for scolding. The shoulder and chest had suffered likewise, though partly protected by the flannel shirt.

On the patient asking how soon he might hope for the use of his arm, the gruff answer was, 'Not so soon as if you had not begun by tearing it to pieces. I can't tell. Depends on general health. May be three weeks, may be six, may be three months, before you get these places healed, if you trifle with them. Now I'll stay and see you in bed, with this arm properly settled.'

This was real kindness for a man in the middle of his dinner; and Felix stood up, finding himself more shaken than he had expected, and commanded by acclamation to betake himself to Mr. Froggatt's bedroom. He chose, however, first to go into the next room, where Cherry had sunk down, trembling and overcome, and so hysterical that her utmost powers had been taxed to prevent herself from disturbing those who could be useful.

'Here I am, all alive!' he said in a cheerful tone, that somehow had no solidity in it, and which she could hardly bear. 'Why, Cherry, you poor little thing! you have come by the worst of it!'

'Don't, Felix! Isn't it dreadful pain?'

'Not now; I scarcely feel it. Never mind, Cherry; I'm all right now, only you will have to write those little fingers nearly off.'

'Oh! Felix, if Wilmet had been gone!'

'She wouldn't be looking Gorgons at me now. Where's Angel?'

Angel had been seized by Robina, and forcibly withheld from flying out after the doctor; and when assured that Lance was gone, she had dashed upstairs, and hidden herself in bed, so that Felix was obliged to go to sleep without seeing her. Remonstrate as he would, he was not allowed to get up the next morning. Mr. Rugg, who came very early, assured him that the speed of his recovery greatly depended on perfect stillness at first, and told him that he would feel the injury if he tried to move; and Wilmet would not do anything but rejoice that he was compelled to submit to discipline that was so good for the cold, a much more real subject of anxiety.

'I must not grumble,' he sighed, as the doctor shut the door; 'but I did not reckon on such a stupid disaster when I got two boys to look after everything.'

'People will not mind for a few days.'

'I hope not. Tell Lance to send Lamb up to me as soon as he comes in. And would Clem walk over to Marshlands? or the Froggery will be in great commotion.'

'Perhaps Robina will go too; and they always like to have her.'

'And Angel? Poor child! I wish she would come.'

'I'll send her. I want you to talk to her. She is such a perplexity.'

'This was no fault of hers!' exclaimed Felix.

'I don't know that. Lance takes it on himself, and says it was just a squabble; but that is sure to have been her fault.'

'I shall not go into that,' said Felix.

'It does seem a chance of making an impression, if you would try,' said Wilmet. 'Sibby says she was crying half the night, (you know she has to sleep in the nursery,) and you might get at her now. I don't know what to do with her.'

He looked up, astonished at this avowal, from her who had hitherto queened it so easily.

'Look at this letter,' she proceeded. 'I have been keeping it till you had time to think about it.'

He sighed, feeling, like many another head of the house, that time was swept away from home responsibilities, and indeed, that great girls needed a more experienced guide. The letter was the school character, speaking most highly of Robina, who had quite reconquered esteem. If she had not so much of any one talent as some of the others, she had excellent capacity, and studied in a business-like way, as one learning a profession; so that she had won her promotion into the first ranks, among elder girls.

But Angela was one of those who will not or cannot do anything tolerably except what they like; and she had only two tastes—for music and fun—except perhaps for churches. She was a puzzle to every one, by her eagerness for devout observances, and the very little good they seemed to do her, even by outrageous irreverence when the spirit of mischief was roused. Teachers detested her, but she was the idol of half the school. All unclaimed misdeeds were laid to her share; and in recklessness or generosity, she never troubled herself to disavow them, even when not her own. She was popularly believed to learn nothing but music, and even in that to use talent to save pains; and she had a lead-like affinity to the bottom of her class, yet in the final examination she had surpassed far more diligent girls.

Felix read, and puzzled himself, and did not refuse obedience when Wilmet insisted that he should 'talk to Angela;' though he was only too well aware that reproof was that paternal duty to which he was least adequate. First, however, he had time to despatch Robina and Clement on their mission to his partner, whose winter rheumatics had set in—to receive young Lamb, laden with a pile of letters and papers, and lastly, to be cooed over and stroked by Theodore, who curled himself up at his feet in that perfect serenity that his presence always infused.

At last Angela came in on tip-toe, looking immensely tall and lank, with Clement's propensity for longitudinal growth, and the same infantine smallness of feature, and much less brilliant colouring than the others; but while his hair was as closely cropped as if he were just out of a cell, hers was as long and as unmanageable as herself; and she had moreover the beautiful large-pupilled, darkly-lashed, mischievous blue eyes that belonged to Edgar, only now their lids were swollen, and all the colour in her face centred in two great red patches beneath them—a scarlet garibaldi over a very old brown skirt, half-way up a long pair of grey legs, seeming to make the whole object more deplorable.

'You poor Angel!' exclaimed Felix, his heart more than ever melted; 'you look as if you had been crying all night. Why don't you come and give me a kiss?'

'I'll—I'll do anything you please, Felix, but I had rather not.'

'But I do please! I want you,' said he, holding out his hand; so that she was forced to come, touch his cheek with her lips, and submit to a far heartier kiss. 'You are as cold as ice,' he added, trying to capture the blue, chilly, long, sausage-like fingers, and warm them in his grasp.

'No, don't! it will only make my chilblains rage. Let me go, now you've forgiven me for your own comfort.'

'Forgiven you for my own comfort! I don't want to forgive you—'

'Oh—h!' and the eyes disappeared, and the face puckered in unutterable woe.

'I haven't anything to forgive you, Angel.'

'Oh, that's worse! when I've hurt you so terribly!'

'You didn't; you never meant it. Of course I never blamed you.'