An unusually large fire blazed in the polished grate, and a couple of candles, in shining candlesticks, stood on the bright mahogany table. On a small old-fashioned sideboard was exhibited a goodly display of bottles and glasses, flanked by a sugar basin, heaped up with snowy bits of refined sugar; a small plate of cut cheese, another of biscuit, and a third bearing a couple of lemons. Everything about the room, in short, gave indication of an approaching guzzle. The symptoms were unmistakeable. The only occupant of the room at this time was a gentleman, who sat in an arm-chair opposite the fire, carelessly turning over the leaves of a new magazine. His heart, evidently, was not in the employment; he was merely putting off time, and doing so with some impatience of manner, for he was ever and anon pulling out his watch to see how the night sped on. This gentleman was Mr. Walkinshaw, the doctor's inviter, head clerk in a respectable mercantile establishment in the city; and, we need hardly say, one of Mrs. Paton's lodgers. Neither need we say, we fancy, that he was just now waiting, and every moment expecting, the arrival of the doctor, and the other friends he had invited, nor that the preparations above described were intended for the special enjoyment of the party alluded to. "Five-and-twenty minutes to nine," said Mr. Walkinshaw, looking for the twentieth time at the dial of his watch. "I wonder what has become of the doctor! _he_ used to be so pointed." At this moment a ring of the door bell announced a visitor. Mr. Walkinshaw, in his impatience for the appearance of his friends, and not doubting that this was one of them, snatched up the candle, and ran to the door himself. He opened it; when a little thick-set figure, in Hessian boots, wrapped up in an ample blue cloth cloak, with an immense cape, and having a red comforter tied round his throat, presented himself. It was the doctor. "How d'ye do? and how d'ye do? Come away. Glad to see you!" with cordial shaking of hands and joyous smiles, marked the satisfaction with which the inviter and the invited met. The doctor was in high spirits, as he always was on such occasions; that is, when there was a prospect of good eating and drinking, and nothing to pay. Having assisted the doctor to divest himself of his cloak, hat, and comforter, Mr. Walkinshaw ushered him into his room; and having kindly seated him in the arm-chair which he had himself occupied a minute or two before, he ran to the sideboard, took therefrom a small bottle, and very small glass of the shape of a thistle-top, and approaching his guest, said in a coaxing tone, filling up at the same time-- "Thimbleful of brandy, doctor; just to take the chill off." Anything for an excuse in such cases. "Why, no objection, my dear sir," said the doctor, smiling most graciously, taking the proffered glass of ruby-coloured liquid, wishing health and a good wife to his host, and tossing off the tiny bumper.