n old-fashioned cabinet,
once gay with lacquered gold and colours, which the industrious
rubbings of Mrs Nutt and her hand-maid were fast effacing--the
depository perhaps of carefully penned love-missives, and broidered
gloves, jewels, and perfumes, and suchlike shreds and patches of
feminine taste or trickery, in other times--now served as a
resting-place for the heterogeneous treasures of a bachelor's private
cupboard. Cigars and captain's biscuits, open letters and unpaid bills,
packs of cards and lecture note-books; odd gloves, odd pence, and odd
things of all kinds--these filled the drawers: while, from the lower
recesses, our friend, in course of time, produced a decanter of port
and a Stilton. There was an old-fashioned sofa, one of that
stiff-backed, hard-hearted generation, which no man thinks of sitting
down upon twice, and three or four of those comfortable high-backed
arm-chairs, in which, when once fairly seated, in pleasant company,
one never wishes to get up again; a round oak table occupied the space
opposite the fire, and another in one corner held the few books which
formed John Brown's studies at the present. One window looked into the
wet meadows by which the house was nearly surrounded, and the other
commanded a view of the square inclosure before mentioned as now
forming the farm-yard--in former days the inner court of the mansion.

"Why, Brown, old fellow, you're quite a lively look-out here," said
Chesterton, who had for some minutes been contemplating, apparently
with much interest, the goings on below. "I wish they kept pigs and
chickens in the college quadrangle. I declare, for the last three
days, in this horrid snow, I've watched for hours out of my window,
(that fellow Hawthorne has taken to reading, and sports oak against me
till luncheon time,) and I hav'n't seen a moving creature. I began to
fancy myself up in the Great St Bernard among the monks; and when that
brute of yours came up and howled at my door the other day, I almost
expected to find him carrying a frozen child on his back, and got out
the cherry brandy to be ready for the worst--didn't I, Hawthorne?"

"I found you one day with Bruin shivering before the fire, and the
cherry brandy on the table, certainly."

"Well, that's the explanation of it, I assure you. But you must have
found it precious dull shut up here by yourself, Brown?"

"Why, yes--rather--sometimes--in spite of the pigs and poultry. Their
proceedings are rath