ow what he
does at his office."

"I'll tell you what he is, Bell; Mr Crosbie is a swell." And Lilian
Dale was right; Mr Crosbie was a swell.

And here I may perhaps best explain who Bernard was, and who was
Mr Crosbie. Captain Bernard Dale was an officer in the corps of
Engineers, was the first cousin of the two girls who have been
speaking, and was nephew and heir presumptive to the squire. His
father, Colonel Dale, and his mother, Lady Fanny Dale, were still
living at Torquay--an effete, invalid, listless couple, pretty well
dead to all the world beyond the region of the Torquay card-tables.
He it was who had made for himself quite a career in the Nineteenth
Dragoons. This he did by eloping with the penniless daughter of that
impoverished earl, the Lord De Guest. After the conclusion of that
event circumstances had not afforded him the opportunity of making
himself conspicuous; and he had gone on declining gradually in the
world's esteem--for the world had esteemed him when he first made
good his running with the Lady Fanny--till now, in his slippered
years, he and his Lady Fanny were unknown except among those Torquay
Bath chairs and card-tables. His elder brother was still a hearty
man, walking in thick shoes, and constant in his saddle; but the
colonel, with nothing beyond his wife's title to keep his body awake,
had fallen asleep somewhat prematurely among his slippers. Of him and
of Lady Fanny, Bernard Dale was the only son. Daughters they had had;
some were dead, some married, and one living with them among the
card-tables. Of his parents Bernard had latterly not seen much; not
more, that is, than duty and a due attention to the fifth commandment
required of him. He also was making a career for himself, having
obtained a commission in the Engineers, and being known to all his
compeers as the nephew of an earl, and as the heir to a property
of three thousand a year. And when I say that Bernard Dale was not
inclined to throw away any of these advantages, I by no means intend
to speak in his dispraise. The advantage of being heir to a good
property is so manifest,--the advantages over and beyond those which
are merely fiscal,--that no man thinks of throwing them away, or
expects another man to do so. Moneys in possession or in expectation
do give a set to the head, and a confidence to the voice, and an
assurance to the man, which will help him much in his walk in
life--if the owner of them will simply use them,