n, fat
and pale, every curl of whose wig, every button and fold of whose laced
clothes, and every feature and line of whose sensual, benignant, and
unwholesome face, was as minutely engraven upon his memory as the dress
and lineaments of his own grandfather's portrait, which hung before him
every day at breakfast, dinner, and supper.

Mr. Prosser mentioned this as an instance of a curiously monotonous,
individualised, and persistent nightmare, and hinted the extreme horror
and anxiety with which his cousin, of whom he spoke in the past tense as
'poor Jemmie,' was at any time induced to mention it.

I hope the reader will pardon me for loitering so long in the Tiled
House, but this sort of lore has always had a charm for me; and people,
you know, especially old people, will talk of what most interests
themselves, too often forgetting that others may have had more than
enough of it.

CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH THE RECTOR VISITS THE TILED HOUSE, AND DOCTOR TOOLE LOOKS AFTER
THE BRASS CASTLE.

Next morning Toole, sauntering along the low road towards the mills, as
usual bawling at his dogs, who scampered and nuzzled hither and thither,
round and about him, saw two hackney coaches and a 'noddy' arrive at
'the Brass Castle,' a tall old house by the river, with a little bit of
a flower-garden, half-a-dozen poplars, and a few old privet hedges about
it; and being aware that it had been taken the day before for Mr.
Dangerfield, for three months, he slackened his pace, in the hope of
seeing that personage, of whom he had heard great things, take seisin of
his tabernacle. He was disappointed, however; the great man had not
arrived, only a sour-faced, fussy old lady, Mrs. Jukes, his housekeeper
and a servant-wench and a great lot of boxes and trunks; and so leaving
the coachman grumbling and swearing at the lady, who, bitter, shrill,
and voluble, was manifestly well able to fight her own battles, he
strolled back to the Phoenix, where a new evidence of the impending
arrival met his view in an English groom with three horses, which the
hostler and he were leading into the inn-yard.

There were others, too, agreeably fidgeted about this arrival. The fair
Miss Magnolia, for instance, and her enterprising parent, the agreeable
Mrs. Macnamara: who both as they gaped and peeped from the windows,
bouncing up from the breakfast-table every minute, to the silent
distress of quiet little Major O'Neill, painted all sorts of handso