interest and unaffected
emotion by the company, as reminding them forcibly of the departed, of
which it seemed a portion.

The party consisted of the vicar of Rookwood, Dr. Polycarp Small; Dr.
Titus Tyrconnel, an emigrant, and empirical professor of medicine, from
the sister isle, whose convivial habits had first introduced him to the
hall, and afterwards retained him there; and Mr. Codicil Coates, clerk
of the peace, attorney-at-law, bailiff, and receiver. We were wrong in
saying that Tyrconnel was retained. He was an impudent, intrusive
fellow, whom, having once gained a footing in the house, it was
impossible to dislodge. He cared for no insult; perceived no slight; and
professed, in her presence, the profoundest respect for Lady Rookwood:
in short, he was ever ready to do anything but depart.

Sir Piers was one of those people who cannot dine alone. He disliked a
solitary repast almost as much as a _tete-a-tete_ with his lady. He
would have been recognized at once as the true Amphitryon, had any one
been hardy enough to play the part of Jupiter. Ever ready to give a
dinner, he found a difficulty arise, not usually experienced on such
occasions--there was no one upon whom to bestow it. He had the best of
wine; kept an excellent table; was himself no niggard host; but his own
merits, and those of his _cuisine_, were forgotten in the invariable
_pendant_ to the feast; and the best of wine lost its flavor when the
last bottle found its way to the guest's head. Dine alone Sir Piers
would not. And as his old friends forsook him, he plunged lower in his
search of society; collecting within his house a class of persons whom
no one would have expected to meet at the hall, nor even its owner have
chosen for his companions, had any choice remained to him. He did not
endure this state of things without much outward show of discontent.
"Anything for a quiet life," was his constant saying; and, like the
generality of people with whom those words form a favorite maxim, he led
the most uneasy life imaginable. Endurance, to excite commiseration,
must be uncomplaining--an axiom the aggrieved of the gentle sex should
remember. Sir Piers endured, but he grumbled lustily, and was on all
hands voted a bore; domestic grievances, especially if the husband be
the plaintiff, being the most intolerable of all mentionable miseries.
No wonder that his friends deserted him; still there was Titus
Tyrconnel; his ears and lips were ever open to p