Sir Amyas, the soft silken Sir Amyas, could not for an instant stand before the terror of Lord Oldborough’s eye: the moment he was told that he was at perfect liberty to discontinue his visits, his regard--his attachment--his devotion for Lady Oldborough, prevented the possibility of abandoning her ladyship; he was willing to sacrifice his private feelings, perhaps his private prejudices, his judgment, in short any thing, every thing, sooner than disoblige Lord Oldborough, or any of his family. Lord Oldborough, satisfied with the submission, scarcely stayed to hear the end of the speech, but rang the bell, ordered that Dr. Percy should be sent for, and went to attend a cabinet council. Lady Oldborough received him as it might be supposed that a very sickly, very much prejudiced, very proud lady of quality would receive a physician without a name, who was forced upon her in opposition to her long habits of reliance on her courtly favourite. Her present disease, as Dr. Percy believed, was water upon her chest, and there was some chance of saving her, by the remedies which have been found successful in a first attack of that complaint; but Sir Amyas had pronounced that her ladyship’s disorder was merely nervous spasms, consequent upon a bilious attack, and he could not, or would not, recede from his opinion: his prescriptions, to which her ladyship devoutly adhered to the last, were all directed against bile and nerves. She would not hear of water on the chest, or take any of the remedies proposed by Dr. Percy. Lady Oldborough died ten days after he was called in. Those who knew nothing of the matter, that is, above nine-tenths of all who talked about it, affirmed that poor Lady Oldborough’s death was occasioned by her following the rash prescriptions of a young physician, who had been forced upon her by Lord Oldborough; and who, unacquainted with her ladyship’s constitution, had mistaken the nature of her complaint. All her ladyship’s female relations joined in this clamour, for they were most of them friends or partizans of Sir Amyas Courtney. The rank and conspicuous situation of Lord Oldborough interested vast numbers in the discussion, which was carried on in every fashionable circle the day after her ladyship’s decease.