or, and without waiting for an
answer he tore open the handkerchief and collar of the insensible youth,
and dispatched some one immediately for a medical man. One was sent for
a smelling-bottle, another for some water, and Mrs. Wilkinson soon made
her appearance with a fan, and other apparatus for restoring a fainting
person. But it was long before there were any signs of returning life.
It was a terrible time for Reginald. It was agony to look on the
motionless form, and blood-streaked countenance before him--to watch
the cloud of anxiety that seemed to deepen on his master's face as
each new restorative failed its accustomed virtue,--to listen to the
subdued murmurs and fearful whispers, and to note the blanched faces
of his school-fellows. He stood with clasped hands, and there was a
prayer in his heart that he might not be called to suffer so very
deeply for this sinful expression of his temper. What if he should
have sent his cousin unprepared into eternity? Oh, what would he
give to see one motion; what, that he had been able to restrain his
ungovernable fury! There was almost despair in his wild thoughts, when
at last Frank sighed faintly, and then opened his eyes. He closed them
immediately, and just then the surgeon arriving, more potent remedies
were used, and he was at length restored to consciousness, though
unable to speak aloud. Doctor Wilkinson had him removed to another
room, and after seeing him comfortably arranged, returned to Reginald's
bedroom.

"Now, how did this happen?" he said.

No one spoke, and the silence was only broken by the sound of sobs from
the further end of the room.

"Who did this?" asked the doctor again.

"I did, sir," said Reginald, in a broken voice.

"Come forward. Who is it that speaks?" said Doctor Wilkinson. "Mortimer!
is this some passion of yours that has so nearly caused the death of
your cousin? I am deeply grieved to find that your temper is still so
ungovernable. What was the matter?"

Reginald was incapable of answering, and none of his companions
understood the quarrel; so Doctor Wilkinson left the room, determined
to make a strict investigation the next morning.

Poor Reginald was almost overwhelmed: he knelt with his brother after
their candle was extinguished, by their bedside, and both wept bitterly,
though quite silently. Distress at his own fault, and his brother's
new trouble, and deep thankfulness that his cousin was alive, and not
dangerously hurt, f