The affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity of making Mr. Lydgate’s acquaintance, having heard of his success in treating fever on a new plan.

Mr. Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave whatever nonsense was talked to him, and his dark steady eyes gave him impressiveness as a listener.  He was as little as possible like the lamented Hicks, especially in a certain careless refinement about his toilet and utterance.  Yet Lady Chettam gathered much confidence in him.  He confirmed her view of her own constitution as being peculiar, by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and he did not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others.  He did not approve of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on the other hand, of incessant port wine and bark.  He said “I think so” with an air of so much deference accompanying the insight of agreement, that she formed the most cordial opinion of his talents.

“I am quite pleased with your protege,” she said to Mr. Brooke before going away.

“My protege?—­dear me!—­who is that?” said Mr. Brooke.

“This young Lydgate, the new doctor.-He seems to me to understand his profession admirably.”

“Oh, Lydgate! he is not my protege, you know; only I knew an uncle of his who sent me a letter about him.  However, I think he is likely to be first-rate—­has studied in Paris, knew Broussais; has ideas, you know—­wants to raise the profession.”

“Lydgate has lots of ideas, quite new, about ventilation and diet, that sort of thing,” resumed Mr. Brooke, after he had handed out Lady Chettam, and had returned to be civil to a group of Middlemarchers.

“Hang it, do you think that is quite sound?—­upsetting The old treatment, which has made Englishmen what they re?” said Mr. Standish.

“Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us,” said Mr. Bulstrode, who spoke in a subdued tone, and had rather a sickly air.  “I, for my part, hail the advent of Mr. Lydgate.  I hope to find good reason for confiding the new hospital to his management.”

“That is all very fine,” replied Mr. Standish, who was not fond of Mr. Bulstrode; “if you like him to try experiments on your hospital patients, and kill a few people for charity I have no objection.  But I am not going to hand money out of my purse to have experiments tried on me.  I like treatment that has been tested a little.”

“Well, you know, Standish, every dose you take is an experiment-an experiment, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards the lawyer.

“Oh, if you talk in that sense!” said Mr. Standish, with as much disgust at such non-legal quibbling as a man can well betray towards a valuable client.

“I should be glad of any treatment that would cure me without reducing me to a skeleton, like poor Grainger,” said Mr. Vincy, the mayor, a florid man, who would have served for a study of flesh in striking contrast with the Franciscan tints of Mr. Bulstrode.  “It’s an uncommonly dangerous thing to be left without any padding against the shafts of disease, as somebody said,—­and I think it a very good expression myself.”