‘I’ll tell my lady,’ said the servant, showing him into the grand dining-room; and there for some fifteen minutes or twenty minutes Dr Fillgrave walked up and down the length of the Turkey carpet all alone.

Dr Fillgrave was not a tall man, and was perhaps rather more inclined to corpulence than became his height.  In his stocking-feet, according to the usually received style of measurement, he was five feet five; and he had a little round abdominal protuberance, which an inch and a half added to the heels of his boots hardly enabled him to carry off as well as he himself would have wished.  Of this he was apparently conscious, and it gave to him an air of not being entirely at his ease.  There was, however, a personal dignity in his demeanour, a propriety in his gait, and an air of authority in his gestures which should prohibit one from stigmatizing those efforts at altitude as a failure.  No doubt he did achieve much; but, nevertheless, the effort would occasionally betray itself, and the story of the frog and the ox would irresistibly force itself into one’s mind at those moments when it most behoved Dr Fillgrave to be magnificent.

But if the bulgy roundness of his person and the shortness of his legs in any way detracted from his personal importance, these trifling defects were, he was well aware, more than atoned for by the peculiar dignity of his countenance.  If his legs were short, his face was not; if there was any undue preponderance below the waistcoat, all was in due symmetry above the necktie.  His hair was grey, not grizzled, nor white, but properly grey; and stood up straight from his temples on each side, with an unbending determination of purpose.  His whiskers, which were of an admirable shape, coming down and turning gracefully at the angle of his jaw, were grey also, but somewhat darker than his hair.  His enemies in Barchester declared that their perfect shade was produced by a leaden comb.  His eyes were not brilliant, but were very effective, and well under command.  He was rather short-sighted, and a pair of eye-glasses was always on his nose, or in his hand.  His nose was long, and well pronounced, and his chin, also, was sufficiently prominent; but the great feature of his face was his mouth.  The amount of secret medical knowledge of which he could give assurance by the pressure of those lips was truly wonderful.  By his lips, also, he could be most exquisitely courteous, or most sternly forbidding.  And not only could he be either the one or the other; but he could at his will assume any shade of difference between the two, and produce any mixture of sentiment.