of the two oculists.
I have all the will to relate them--but the capacity to do it completely
fails me.

When I look back at that eventful morning, I recall a scene of confusion
and suspense, the bare recollection of which seems to upset my mind
again, even at this distance of time. Things and persons all blend
distractedly one with another. I see the charming figure of my blind
Lucilla, robed in rose-color and white, flitting hither and thither, in
the house and out of the house--at one time mad with impatience for the
arrival of the surgeons; at another, shuddering with apprehension of the
coming ordeal, and the coming disappointment which might follow. A moment
more--and, just as my mind has seized it, the fair figure melts and
merges into the miserable apparition of Oscar; hovering and hesitating
between Browndown and the rectory; painfully conscious of the new
complications introduced into his position towards Lucilla by the new
state of things; and yet not man enough, even yet, to seize the
opportunity, and set himself right. Another moment passes, and a new
figure--a little strutting consequential figure forces its way into the
foreground, before I am ready for it. I hear a big voice booming in my
ear, with big language to correspond. "No, Madame Pratolungo, nothing
will induce me to sanction by my presence this insane medical
consultation, this extravagant and profane attempt to reverse the decrees
of an all-wise Providence by purely human means. My foot is down--I use
the language of the people, observe, to impress it the more strongly on
your mind--My FOOT is down!" Another moment yet, and Finch and Finch's
Foot disappear over my mental horizon just as my eye has caught them.
Damp Mrs. Finch, and the baby whose everlasting programme is suction and
sleep, take the vacant place. Mrs. Finch pledges me with watery
earnestness to secrecy; and then confides her intention of escaping her
husband's supervision if she can, and bringing British surgery and German
surgery to bear both together (gratis) on baby's eyes. Conceive these
persons all twisting and turning in the convolutions of my brains, as if
those brains were a labyrinth; with the sayings and doings of one,
confusing themselves with the sayings and doings of the other--with a
thin stream of my own private anxieties (comprehending luncheon on a
side-table for the doctors) trickling at intervals through it all--and
you will not wonder if I take a jump, like a