Sixteen years before this time, all Hollingford had been disturbed to its foundations by the intelligence that Mr. Hall, the skilful¹ doctor, who had attended them all their days, was going to take a partner. It was no use reasoning to them on the subject; so Mr Browning the vicar, Mr. Sheepshanks (Lord Cumnor’s agent), and Mr Hall himself, the masculine reasoners of the little society, left off the attempt, feeling that the Che sara sara would prove more silencing to the murmurs³ than many arguments. Mr. Hall had told his faithful patients that, even with the strongest spectacles, his sight was not to be depended upon; and they might have found out for themselves that his hearing was very defective⁴, although, on this point, he obstinately⁵ adhered to his own opinion, and was frequently heard to regret the carelessness of people’s communication nowadays, ‘like writing on blotting-paper, all the words running into each other,’ he would say. And more than once Mr. Hall had had attacks of a suspicious nature — ‘rheumatism⁶’ he used to call them; but he prescribed for himself as if they had been gout — which had prevented his immediate⁷ attention to imperative⁸ summonses. But, blind and deaf, and rheumatic as he might be, he was still Mr. Hall, the doctor who could heal all their ailments⁹ — unless they died meanwhile — and he had no right to speak of growing old, and taking a partner.

He went very steadily¹⁰ to work all the same; advertising¹¹ in medical journals, reading testimonials,

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