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Title: The Doctor's Family

Author: Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

Release Date: September 2, 2009 [EBook #29890]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Chronicles of Carlingford

THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY

BY

MRS OLIPHANT

NEW EDITION
_WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS_
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD.

THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

Young Dr Rider lived in the new quarter of Carlingford: had he aimed at
a reputation in society, he could not possibly have done a more foolish
thing; but such was not his leading motive. The young man, being but
young, aimed at a practice. He was not particular in the mean time as to
the streets in which his patients dwelt. A new house, gazing with all
its windows over a brick-field, was as interesting to the young surgeon
as if it had been one of those exclusive houses in Grange Lane, where
the aristocracy of Carlingford lived retired within their garden walls.
His own establishment, though sufficiently comfortable, was of a kind
utterly to shock the feelings of the refined community: a corner house,
with a surgery round the corner, throwing the gleam of its red lamp over
all that chaotic district of half-formed streets and full-developed
brick-fields, with its night-bell prominent, and young Rider's name on a
staring brass plate, with mysterious initials after it. M.R.C.S. the
unhappy young man had been seduced to put after his name upon that brass
plate, though he was really Dr Rider, a physician, if not an experienced
one. Friends had advised him that in such districts people were afraid
of physicians, associating only with dread adumbrations of a guinea a
visit that miscomprehended name; so, with a pang, the young surgeon had
put his degree in his pocket, and put up with the inferior distinction.
Of course, Dr Marjoribanks had all the patronage of Grange Lane. The
great people were infatuated about that snuffy old