Chapter XXIX: Having such "compelling cause to grieve" over the decease of Hallam,

"as daily vexes household peace"--

for death is ever invading some home--how can they venture to keep Christmas Eve as usual? He is absent, who when amongst them was so eminently social. But it must be done. "Use and wont," "old sisters of a day gone by," still demand what has been customary. "They too will die," and new habits succeed.

To the fourteenth chapter of Walter Scott's "Pirate," there is the following motto from "Old Play," which meant Scott's own invention:

"We'll keep our customs. What is law itself
But old establish'd custom? What religion
(I mean with one half of the men that use it)
Save the good use and wont that carries them
To worship how and where their fathers worshipp'd?
All things resolve to custom. We'll keep ours."