This was so convincing, that off went another three-cocked note, and next day a dark-green carriage and pair dashed up to Mrs. Dodd's door, and Dr. Short bent himself in an arc, got out, and slowly mounted the stairs. He was six feet two, wonderfully thin, livid, and gentleman-like. Fine homing head, keen eye, lantern jaws. At sight of him Mrs. Dodd rose and smiled. Julia started and sat trembling. He stepped across the room inaudibly, and after the usual civilities, glanced at the patient's tongue, and touched her wrist delicately. “Pulse is rapid,” said he.
Mrs. Dodd detailed the symptoms. Dr. Short listened within the patient politeness of a gentleman, to whom all this was superfluous. He asked for a sheet of note-paper, and divided it so gently, he seemed to be persuading one thing to be two. He wrote a pair of prescriptions, and whilst thus employed looked up every now and then and conversed with the ladies.
“You have a slight subscapular affection, Miss Dodd: I mean, a little pain under the shoulder-blade.”
“No, sir,” said Julia quietly.
Dr. Short looked a little surprised; his female patients rarely contradicted him. Was it for them to disown things he was so a good as to assign them?
“Ah!” said he, “you are not conscious of it: all the better; it must be slight; a mere uneasiness: no more.” He then numbered the prescriptions, 1, 2, and advised Mrs. Dodd to drop No. 1 after the eighth day, and substitute No. 2, to be continued until convalescence. He put on his gloves to leave. Mrs. Dodd then, with some hesitation, asked him humbly whether she might ask him what the disorder was. “Certainly, madam,” said he graciously; “your daughter is labouring under a slight torpidity of the liver. The first prescription is active, and is to clear the gland itself, and the biliary ducts, of the excretory accumulation; and the second is exhibited to promote a healthy normal habit in that important part of the vascular system.”
“What, then, it is not Hyperaemia?”
“Hyperaemia? There is no such disorder in the books.”
“You surprise me,” said Mrs. Dodd. “Dr. Osmond certainly thought it was Hyperaemia.” And she consulted her little ivory tablets, whereon she had written the word.
But meantime, Dr. Short's mind, to judge by his countenance, was away roaming distant space in search of Osmond.