"I know that of late I--I have not...." My father laid his hand suddenly over my mouth.
"No confessions--no apologies," he said hastily.

"We have both been to blame in more respects than one, and we shall both know how to be wiser in the future.

Now go, and consider all that you may require for your journey." Agitated, delighted, full of hope, I ran up to my own room, locked the door, and indulged in a delightful reverie.

What a prospect had suddenly opened before me! What novelty! what adventure! To have visited London would have been to fulfil all my desires; but to be sent to Paris was to receive a passport for Fairyland! That day, for the first time in many months, I dressed myself carefully, and went down to dinner with a light heart, a cheerful face, and an unexceptionable neckcloth.
As I took my place at the table, my father looked up cheerily and gave me a pleased nod of recognition.
Our meal passed off very silently.

It was my father's maxim that no man could do more than one thing well at a time--especially at table; so we had contracted a habit which to strangers would have seemed even more unsociable than it really was, and gave to all our meals an air more penitential than convivial.