A COUNTRY LAWYER'S CHRISTMAS EVE. ' i ""HIS happened thirty years ago. Then I measured many inches fewer round the waist than I can pretend to now; then my easy-chair was enjoyable as a luxury, — it was not in those days, as it is to-day, al most a necessary. It was Christmas Eve. I had dined at hospitable old I 's, — a pleasant party, and a sumptuous dinner, to which I, for one, with a naturally good appetite sharpened by the keen frost, had done ample justice. The wine was excellent, its supply unstinted, and our host had kept his decanters in rapid and effective circulation; so that, when we came to bid the genial old gentleman good-night, we were in that complacent and beamingly benevolent mood which such good cheer alone can induce. Wrapped carefully and bulgingly though I was in overcoat and muffler, I could not quite repress a shiver as I left the warm and well-lit rooms, and stepped into the cold and pitch-black night. It was a contrast. The thermometer was far below freezingpoint. Not a single star had the courtesy to come out to greet me; and as for the moon — well, but for the faith one comes to repose in the prophetic almanac, I should have concluded it gone from our sky never to return. Yet, as I briskly trotted along over the crisp snow, I was far from dis pirited. I relished it. The cold only whet ted my anticipation of the warmth to come. Positively, I chuckled like a boy at the pros pect before me; the cheering prospect of warm slippers (after my tight pumps) before a blazing fire; with just a "night-cap" be fore turning in; and then — the turning in. So I got very fleetly over the few hundred yards which separated my modest house from I 's, and I was soon seated with all my late alluring anticipations now be coming delicious realities. Quite a young man, I had but recently begun to practise as a solicitor, and was
settled as such in the old county of P , in the Scottish Highlands. After a term of waiting, endured with what patience I could command, business had begun to come in satisfactorily; and as is natural in the new (of every species, including the proverbial broom), I was very attentive and anxious in regard to this budding practice of mine. But, for this Christmas eve at least, I meant to leave business behind in my office. I had locked up all recollections of it when I turned the key in my meagrely filled safe. Little resolve, indeed, was necessary to do that. My mind was comfortably filled with lin gering recollections of my evening's amuse ment, and it would be an engrossing item of business, a very self-important and for ward item of business indeed, that could insinuate itself even edgeways into such a mind at such a time. Eleven struck. I smoked the pipe of utter contentment with myself and all mankind. The fire made me pleasantly drowsy; and when the pipe should be finished and the tumbler empty, I would yield to the drowsi ness. So I blinked at the fire, and it at me. By and by, as I was lazily winding up my watch, I was repeating to myself some of the jokes I had heard at old I 's, and was indulging in a kind of ruminating laugh ter, when a name by association, ! woke me up in earnest! Through the stout bar riers of snug fire, warm slippers, steaming beverage, and soothing pipe; through the brave outposts of a pleasant company, rare good cheer, and generous wines, lately en joyed, — brushing past resolution and elbow ing aside habit, — there rushed in on my sleepy brain, abruptly, rudely, and unan nounced, one baneful thought of business, and dispelled all besides. I had duly sum moned creditors and all others concerned for the day after Christmas; all the ar rangements for the meeting had been care fully made. But until that moment I had
