It was with no thought of practising his profession that Dr. Lendrick had settled in the neighborhood; but as he was always ready to assist the poor by his advice and skill, and as the reputation of his great ability gradually got currency, he found himself constrained to yield to the insistence of his neighbors, and consent to practise generally. There were many things which made this course unpalatable to him. He was by nature shy, timid, and retiring; he was fastidiously averse to a new acquaintanceship; he had desired, besides, to live estranged from the world, devoting himself entirely to the education of his children; and he neither liked the forced publicity he became exposed to, nor that life of servitude which leaves the doctor at the hourly mercy of the world around him. If he yielded, therefore, to the professional calls upon him, he resisted totally all social claims: he went nowhere but as the doctor. No persuasion, no inducement, could prevail on him to dine out; no exigency of time or season prevent him returning to his home at night. There were in his neighborhood one or two persons whose rank might have, it was supposed, influenced him in some degree to comply with their requests,--and, certainly, whose desire for his society would have left nothing undone to secure it; but he was as obdurate to them as to others, and the Earl of Drum-carran and Sir Reginald Lacy, of Lacy Manor, were not a whit more successful in their blandishments than the Vicar of Killaloe--old Bob Mills, as he was irreverently called--or Lendrick's own colleague, Dr. Tobin, who, while he respected his superior ability and admitted his knowledge, secretly hated him as only a rival doctor knows how to hate a brother practitioner. For the first time for many years had Dr. Lendrick gone up to Dublin. A few lines from an old family physician, Dr. Beattie, had, however, called him up to town. The Chief Baron had been taken ill in Court, and was conveyed home in a state of insensibility. It was declared that he had rallied and passed a favorable night; but as he was a man of very advanced age, at no time strong, and ever unsparing of himself in the arduous labors of his office, grave doubts were felt that he would ever again resume his seat on the Bench. Dr. Beattie well knew the long estrangement that had separated the father from the son; and although, perhaps, the most intimate friend the Judge had in the world, he never had dared to interpose a word or drop a hint as to the advisability of reconciliation.