should bear half your own burdens." "So it is, Randal; that did not
strike me before. I will take your counsel; and now I will go at once
to Limmer's. My dear father! I hope he is looking well?"

"Oh, very. Such a contrast to the sallow Londoners! But I think you had
better not go till dinner. He has asked me to meet you at six. I will
call for you a little before, and we can go together. This will prevent
a good deal of /gene/ and constraint. Good-by till then. Ha! by the
way, I think if I were you, I would not take the matter too seriously and
penitentially. You see the best of fathers like to keep their sons under
their thumb, as the saying is. And if you want at your age to preserve
your independence, and not be hurried off and buried in the country, like
a schoolboy in disgrace, a little manliness of bearing would not be
amiss. You can think over it."

The dinner at Limmer's went off very differently from what it ought to
have done. Randal's words had sunk deep, and rankled sorely in the
squire's mind; and that impression imparted a certain coldness to his
manner which belied the hearty, forgiving, generous impulse with which he
had come up to London, and which even Randal had not yet altogether
whispered away. On the other hand, Frank, embarrassed both by the sense
of disingenuousness, and a desire "not to take the thing too seriously,"
seemed to the squire ungracious and thankless.

After dinner the squire began to hum and haw, and Frank to colour up and
shrink. Both felt discomposed by the presence of a third person; till,
with an art and address worthy of a better cause, Randal himself broke
the ice, and so contrived to remove the restraint he had before imposed,
that at length each was heartily glad to have matters made clear and
brief by his dexterity and tact.