So home went little Lily more pensive than she came.
It was near eight o'clock, when who should arrive at the door, and
flutter the crows in the old elms with an energetic double knock, but
Aunt Rebecca, accompanied by no less a personage than Dr. Toole in full
costume, and attended by old Dominick, the footman.
The doctor was a little bit ruffled and testy, for having received a
summons from Belmont, he had attended in full blow, expecting to
prescribe for Aunt Rebecca or Miss Gertrude, and found, instead, that he
was in for a barren and benevolent walk of half a mile on the Inchicore
road, with the energetic Miss Rebecca, to visit one of her felonious
pensioners who lay sick in his rascally crib. It was not the first time
that the jolly little doctor had been entrapped by the good lady into a
purely philanthropic excursion of this kind. But he could not afford to
mutiny, and vented his disgust in blisters and otherwise drastic
treatment of the malingering scoundrels whom he served out after his
kind for the trouble and indignity they cost him.
'And here we are, Lily dear, on our way to see poor dear Pat Doolan,
who, I fear, is not very long for this world.
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