ngworth.

"You, doctor," added Henry, "who know much of my family, need not be
told what sort of man my father was."

"No, indeed."

"But you, Admiral Bell, who do not know, must be told, and, however
grievous it may be to me to have to say so, I must inform you that he
was not a man who would have merited your esteem."

"Well," said the admiral, "you know, my boy, that can make no difference
as regards you in anybody's mind, who has got the brains of an owl.
Every man's credit, character, and honour, to my thinking, is in his own
most special keeping, and let your father be what he might, or who he
might, I do not see that any conduct of his ought to raise upon your
cheek the flush of shame, or cost you more uneasiness than ordinary good
feeling dictates to the errors and feelings of a fellow creature."

"If all the world," said Henry, "would take such liberal and
comprehensive views as you do, admiral, it would be much happier than it
is; but such is not the case, and people are but too apt to blame one
person for the evil that another has done."

"Ah, but," said Mr. Chillingworth, "it so happens that those are the
people whose opinions are of the very least consequence."

"There is some truth in that," said Henry, sadly; "but, however, let me
proceed; since I have to tell the tale, I could wish it over. My father,
then, Admiral Bell, although a man not tainted in early life with vices,
became, by the force of bad associates, and a sort of want of
congeniality and sentiment that sprang up between him and my mother,
plunged into all the excesses of his age."

"These excesses were all of that character which the most readily lay
hold strongly of an unreflecting mind, because they all presented
themselves in the garb of sociality.

"The wine cup is drained in the name of good fellowship; money which is
wanted for legitimate purposes is squandered under the mask of a noble
and free generosity, and all that the small imaginations of a number of
persons of perverted intellects could enable them to do, has been done
from time to time, to impart a kind of lustre to intemperance and all
its dreadful and criminal consequences.

"My father, having once got into the company of what he considered wits
and men of spirit, soon became thoroughly vitiated. He was almost the
only one of the set among whom he passed what he considered his highly
convivial existence, who was really worth anything, pecuniarily
speaking. There