Doctor Vardaman's guests sat down some ten or twelve strong, the doctor at the head of his table, in a dress-coat the fashion of which antedated even Huddesley's, with his iron-grey hair brushed forward in a tuft over each ear; with a black stock such as he had worn since the year '40; his eyeglass on a black ribbon aslant across his shirt-front like an order; and a pair of Labrador-stone buttons in his cuffs, dark watery-green with a crumb of fire eerily visible in the depths of them. These cuff-buttons signalised the dinner as a gala-occasion; the doctor marked the day with a Labrador-stone. He only wore them when the event was of enough importance to justify such a display--a queer sentimental tribute to certain queer sentimental recollections. They had been given him who knows how long ago, and by whom? So do we all in secret offer some absurd and pathetic oblation before the shrines of the past. I dare say when the doctor opened the top drawer of his high-shouldered mahogany bureau and took his Labrador-stone buttons out of their dingy little green morocco case, for one moment the breath of a vanished spring saluted him, and the roses still bloomed by the calm Bendemeer. Thus did the old gentleman preside, invested with the kind dignity of his age and character, and of his noble and beautiful profession; and I have no doubt his ancient bachelor heart warmed a good deal at this exercise of hospitality, at the brave sight of the double row of young men's faces before him, and the deep and pleasant sound of their laughter. The other end of the table was held by Mr. J. Breckinridge Taylor, as the journals persisted in reporting him; and Huddesley brought in the soup. The doctor served it himself from a tub of a tureen, with a silver ladle not less than a yard long, both of which had graced the tables of his mother and grandmother--there were giants in those days!--as had all the other furnishings of this memorable dinner.