'I'm very glad to hear it, very; but as the morning is getting on, shall I step up to see Sir Roger?'
'Why, Dr. Fillgrave, sir; you see, he finds hisself so much hisself this morning, that he a'most thinks it would be a shame to trouble you.'
'A shame to trouble me!' This was a sort of shame which Dr. Fillgrave did not at all comprehend. 'A shame to trouble me! Why, Lady Scatcherd—'
Lady Scatcherd saw that she had nothing for it but to make the whole matter intelligible. Moreover, seeing that she appreciated more thoroughly the smallness of Dr. Fillgrave's person than she did the peculiar greatness of his demeanour, she began to be a shade less afraid of him than she had thought she should have been.
'Yes, Dr. Fillgrave; you see, when a man like he gets well, he can't abide the idea of doctors: now yesterday, he was all for sending for you; but to-day he comes to hisself, and don't seem to want no doctor at all.'
Then did Dr. Fillgrave seem to grow out of his boots, so suddenly did he take upon himself sundry modes of expansive altitude;—to grow out of his boots and to swell upwards, till his augry eyes almost looked down on Lady Scatcherd, and each erect hair bristled up towards the heavens.
'This is very singular, very singular, Lady Scatcherd; very singular, indeed; very singular; quite unusual. I have come here from Barchester, at some considerable inconvenience, at some very considerable inconvenience, I may say, to my regular patients; and—and—and—I don't know that anything so very singular ever occurred to me before.' And then Dr. Fillgrave, with a compression of his lips which almost made the poor woman sink into the ground, moved towards the door.
Then Lady Scatcherd bethought her of her great panacea. 'It isn't about the money, you know, doctor,' said she; 'of course Sir Roger don't expect you to come here with post-horses for nothing.' In this, by-the-by, Lady Scatcherd did not stick quite close to veracity, for Sir Roger, had he known it, would by no means have assented to any payment; and the note which her ladyship held in her hand was taken from her own private purse. 'It ain't at all about the money, doctor;' and then she tendered the bank-note, which she thought would immediately make all things smooth.
Now Dr. Fillgrave dearly loved a five-pound fee. What physician is so unnatural as not to love it? He dearly loved a five-pound fee; but he loved his dignity better. He was angry also; and like all angry men, he loved his grievance. He felt that he
