shrugged his shoulders as he said:

"You know the Bible says that 'gifts are divers,' my friend. Well, my
two boys will never be brilliant scholars, that is certain; but I hope,
for that very reason, Alf may make the braver soldier and Ben the bolder
sailor." And having laid this flattering unction to his soul, the old
man felt no malice against our boy for outshining his own sons.

Not so the Burghe boys themselves. Their natures were essentially low;
and this low nature betrayed itself in their very faces, forms, and
manners. They were short and thickset, with bull necks, bullet heads,
shocks of thick black hair, low foreheads, large mouths, dark
complexions, and sullen expressions. They were very much alike in person
and in character. The only difference being that Alf was the bigger and
the wickeder and Ben the smaller and the weaker.

Against Ishmael they had many grudges, the least of which was cause
enough with them for lifelong malice. First, on that memorable occasion
of the robbed carriage, he had exposed their theft and their falsehood.
Secondly, he had had the good luck to save their lives and win
everlasting renown for the brave act; and this, to churlish, thankless,
and insolent natures like theirs, was the greater offense of the two;
and now he had had the unpardonable impudence to eclipse them in the
school. He! the object of their father's bounty, as they called him.
They lost no opportunity of sneering at him whenever they dared to do
so.

Ishmael Worth could very well afford to practice forbearance towards
these ill-conditioned lads. He was no longer the poor, sickly, and
self-doubting child he had been but a year previous. Though still
delicate as to his physique, it was with an elegant, refined rather than
a feeble and sickly delicacy. He grew very much like his father, who was
one of the handsomest men of his day; but it was from his mother that he
derived his sweet voice and his beautiful peculiarity of smiling only
with his eyes. His school-life had, besides, taught him more than book
learning; it had taught him self-knowledge. He had been forced to
measure himself with others, and find out his relative moral and
intellectual standing. His success at school, and the appreciation he
received from others, had endowed him with a self-respect and confidence
easily noticeable in the modest dignity and grace of his air and manner.
In these respects also his deportment formed a favorable contrast to