that knowledge basing authority and position, Colonel Morley was not
calculating, not cunning, not suspicious,--his sagacity the more quick
because its movements were straightforward; intimate with the greatest,
but sought, not seeking; not a flatterer nor a parasite, but when his
advice was asked (even if advice necessitated reproof) giving it with
military candour: in fine, a man of such social reputation as rendered
him an ornament and prop to the House of Vipont; and with unsuspected
depths of intelligence and feeling, which lay in the lower strata of his
knowledge of this world to witness of some other one, and justified
Darrell in commending a boy like Lionel Haughton to the Colonel's
friendly care and admonitory counsels. The Colonel, like other men, had
his weakness, if weakness it can be called: he believed that the House of
Vipont was not merely the Corinthian capital, but the embattled keep--not
merely the /dulce decus/, but the /praesidium columenque rerum/--of the
British monarchy. He did not boast of his connection with the House; he
did not provoke your spleen by enlarging on its manifold virtues; he
would often have his harmless jest against its members, or even against
its pretensions: but such seeming evidences of forbearance or candour
were cunning devices to mitigate envy. His devotion to the House was not
obtrusive: it was profound. He loved the House of Vipont for the sake of
England: he loved England for the sake of the House of Vipont. Had it
been possible, by some tremendous reversal of the ordinary laws of
nature, to dissociate the cause of England from the cause of the House of
Vipont, the Colonel would have said, "Save at least the Ark of the
Constitution! and rally round the old House!"

The Colonel had none of Guy Darrell's infirmity of family pride; he cared
not a rush for mere pedigrees,--much too liberal and enlightened for such
obsolete prejudices. No! He knew the world too well not to be quite
aware that old family and long pedigrees are of no use to a man if he has