You must be sensible how ready I am to fly," rising as if he
had been glued to his chair, "when there is any real danger. I'm sure it
was only last week I got up as soon as I had swallowed my dinner to see
a man who had fallen down in a fit; and now I am going to this woman,
who, I daresay, has nothing the matter with her, before my breakfast is
well down my throat."
"Who is that gentleman?" asked Mary, as the Doctor at length, with much
reluctance, shuffled out of the room.
"He is a sort of medical aid-de-camp of papa's," answered Lady Emily;
"who, for the sake of good living, has got himself completely
domesticated here. He is vulgar, selfish, and _gourmand_, as you must
already have discovered; but these are accounted his greatest
perfections, as papa, like all indolent people, must be diverted--and
_that_ he never is by genteel, sensible people. He requires something
more _piquant,_and nothing fatigues him so much as the conversation of a
commonplace, sensible man--one who has the skill to keep his foibles out
of sight. Now what delights him in Dr. Redgill, there is no
_retenu_--any child who runs may read his character at a glance."
"It certainly does not require much penetration," said Mary, "to
discover the Doctor's master-passion; love of ease and self-indulgence
seem to be the pre-dominant features of his mind; and he looks as if,
when he sat in an arm-chair, with his toes on the fender and his hands
crossed, he would not have an idea beyond 'I wonder what we shall have
for dinner to-day.
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