'It is beyond being jolly,' said Lance. 'I did this once too often last holidays; and I don't think he has got over it yet, though I promised never to do it again.'
'The more reason I should,' said Angela, laughing saucily in his face, though both spoke under their breath.
'No,' said Lance. 'Consider! He is absurdly stuck up; but anything to disgust him with the Nareses is good.'
'I see no harm in Jem Nares,' said democratic Angela. 'I'll not have him cut! give me my picture.'
'No, I promised he should not be done again.'
'Promise for yourself another time.'
She snatched, and there was a sparring match. Lance held off with one hand, and with the other dashed her drawing into the fire, where it fell on the top of some black coals; and as he relaxed his grasp, she sprang to rescue it. Felix looked up in time to see the kettle toppling over. He flung Theodore out of the way of the boiling stream that rushed from lid and spout as the whole descended on the hearth, amid cries from Angela and Theodore that brought all the others together; nor could the little one be pacified, even though Wilmet ascertained that he had only been touched by one boiling drop.
'But Felix!' exclaimed Lance; and they all turned.
'Never mind,' he said, but with more of a contraction of the lips than a smile; 'only my neck and arm. Here, Lance, help me;' presenting the end of his sleeve, and setting his teeth.
The hasty vigorous pull, made in ignorance on both sides, removed the coat; but Felix gave something between a gasp and a cry, tried to totter to a 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.