The strict retirement of his life must now give way before the requirements of an election candidate, and he must consent to take the field once more as a public man, or, by abandoning his seat in Parliament, accept a condition of what he knew to be complete obscurity. The old doctor was indeed favorable to the latter course,--the passion for hoarding had gone on increasing with age. Money was, in his estimation, the only species of power above the changes and caprice of the world. Bank-notes were the only things he never knew to deceive; and he took an almost fiendish delight in contrasting the success of his own penurious practices with all the disappointments his son O'Reilly had experienced in his attempts at what he called “high life.” Every slight shown him, each new instance of coldness or aversion of the neighborhood, gave the old man a diabolical pleasure, and seemed to revive his youth in the exercise of a malignant spirit. O'Reilly's only hope of reconciling his father to the cost of a new election was in the prospect held out that the seat might at last be secured in perpetuity for Beeeham, and the chance of a rich marriage in England thus provided. Even this view he was compelled to sustain by the assurance that the expense would be a mere trifle, and that, by the adoption of popular principles, he should come in almost for nothing. To make the old doctor a convert to these notions, he had called in Heffernau and O'Halloran, who both, during the dinner, had exerted themselves with their natural tact, and now that the doctor had dropped asleep, were reposing themselves, and recruiting the energies so generously expended. Hence the party seemed to have a certain gloom and weight over it, as the shadow of coming night fell on the figures seated, almost in silence, around the table. None spoke save an occasional word or two, as they passed round the bottle. Each retreated into his own reflections, and communed with himself. Men who have exhibited themselves to each other, in a game of deceit and trick, seem to have a natural repugnance to any recurrence to the theme when the occasion is once over. Even they whose hearts have the least self-respect will avoid the topic if possible. “How is the bottle?--with you, I believe,” said O'Reilly to Heffernan, in the low tone to which they had all reduced the conversation. “I have just filled my glass; it stands with the Counsellor.” O'Halloran poured out the wine and sipped it slowly. “A very remarkable man,” said he, sententiously, with a slight gesture of his head to the chair where the old doctor lay coiled up asleep. “His faculties seem as clear, and his judgment as acute, as if he were only five-and-forty, and I suppose he must be nearly twice that age.” “Very nearly,” replied O'Reilly; “he confesses commonly to eighty-six; but when he is weak or querulous, he often says ninety-one or two.”