warm his heart and elevate, while it chastened, his moral qualities; for
in Lady Mary there was, amidst singular sweetness of temper, a high cast
of character and thought. She was not what is commonly called clever,
and her experience of the world was limited, compared to that of most
women of similar rank who pass their lives in the vast theatre of London.
But she became superior by a certain single-heartedness which made truth
so habitual to her that the light in which she lived rendered all objects
around her clear. One who is always true in the great duties of life is
nearly always wise. And Vernon, when he had fairly buried his faults,
had felt a noble shame for the excesses into which they had led him.
Gradually more and more wedded to his home, he dropped his old
companions. He set grave guard on his talk (his habits now required no
guard), lest any of the ancient levity should taint the ears of his
children. Nothing is more common in parents than their desire that their
children should escape their faults. We scarcely know ourselves till we
have children; and then, if we love them duly, we look narrowly into
failings that become vices, when they serve as examples to the young.

The inborn gentleman, with the native courage and spirit and horror of
trick and falsehood which belong to that chivalrous abstraction, survived
almost alone in Vernon St. John; and his boys sprang up in the atmosphere
of generous sentiments and transparent truth. The tutor was in harmony
with the parents,--a soldier every inch of him; not a mere
disciplinarian, yet with a profound sense of duty, and a knowledge that
duty is to be found in attention to details. In inculcating the habit of
subordination, so graceful to the young, he knew how to make himself
beloved, and what is harder still, to be understood. The soul of this
poor soldier was white and unstained, as the arms of a maiden knight; it
was full of suppressed but lofty enthusiasm. He had been ill used,
whether by Fate or the Horse Guards; his career had been a failure; but