kers--"

"Always renew to a young man of your expectations. And if I get into an
office, I can always help you, my dear Frank."

"Ah, Randal, I am not so bad as to take advantage of your friendship,"
said Frank, warmly. "But it seems to me mean after all, and a sort of a
lie, indeed, disguising the real state of my affairs. I should not have
listened to the idea from any one else; but you are such a sensible,
kind, honourable fellow."

"After epithets so flattering, I shrink from the responsibility of
advice. But apart from your own interests, I should be glad to save your
father the pain he would feel at knowing the whole extent of the scrape
you have got into. And if it entailed on you the necessity to lay
by--and give up hazard, and not be security for other men--why, it would
be the best thing that could happen. Really, too, it seems hard upon Mr.
Hazeldean that he should be the only sufferer, and quite just that you
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 th