“How very shocking! I fear she is headstrong. But tell me—you know all about him—is there anything very bad? What is the truth?”
“The truth? he is as bad as the wrong physic—nasty to take, and sure to disagree.”
“There could not be anything worse than that,” said Lady Chettam, with so vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learned something exact about Mr. Casaubon’s disadvantages. “However, James will hear nothing against Miss Brooke. He says she is the mirror of women still.”
“That is a generous make-believe of his. Depend upon it, he likes little Celia better, and she appreciates him. I hope you like my little Celia?”
“Certainly; she is fonder of geraniums, and seems more docile, though not so fine a figure. But we were talking of physic. Tell me about this new young surgeon, Mr. Lydgate. I am told he is wonderfully clever: he certainly looks it—a fine brow indeed.”
“He is a gentleman. I heard him talking to Humphrey. He talks well.”
“Yes. Mr. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland, really well connected. One does not expect it in a practitioner of that kind.
For my own part, I like a medical man more on a footing with the servants; they are often all the cleverer. I assure you I found poor Hicks’s judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong. He was coarse and butcher-like, but he knew my constitution. It was a loss to me his going off so suddenly.
Dear me, what a very animated conversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr. Lydgate!”