life--if the owner of them will simply use them, and not abuse them.
And for Bernard Dale I will say that he did not often talk of his
uncle the earl. He was conscious that his uncle was an earl, and that
other men knew the fact. He knew that he would not otherwise have
been elected at the Beaufort, or at that most aristocratic of little
clubs called Sebright's. When noble blood was called in question he
never alluded specially to his own, but he knew how to speak as one
of whom all the world was aware on which side he had been placed by
the circumstances of his birth. Thus he used his advantage, and did
not abuse it. And in his profession he had been equally fortunate.
By industry, by a small but wakeful intelligence, and by some aid
from patronage, he had got on till he had almost achieved the
reputation of talent. His name had become known among scientific
experimentalists, not as that of one who had himself invented a
cannon or an antidote to a cannon, but as of a man understanding in
cannons and well fitted to look at those invented by others; who
would honestly test this or that antidote; or, if not honestly,
seeing that such thin-minded men can hardly go to the proof of any
matter without some pre-judgment in their minds, at any rate with
such appearance of honesty that the world might be satisfied. And in
this way Captain Dale was employed much at home, about London; and
was not called on to build barracks in Nova Scotia, or to make roads
in the Punjaub.

He was a small slight man, smaller than his uncle, but in face very
like him. He had the same eyes, and nose, and chin, and the same
mouth; but his forehead was better,--less high and pointed, and
better formed about the brows. And then he wore moustaches, which
somewhat hid the thinness of his mouth. On the whole, he was not
ill-looking; and, as I have said before, he carried with him an air