Left to his own meditations, Harry started a cigar on his own account, and, the night being a fine one, he paced up and down the gravel walk in front of the house until he should have cleared his brain from the fumes of the wine civility had forced him to swallow. The calm stars came out one by one, and as he watched their bright effulgence, an idea of his childhood, that they might be the eyes of angels, recurred to his memory; and he could even fancy they appeared to gaze upon him reproachfully. No human being possessing even the lowest order of reflective powers, or the faintest vestige of imagination, can watch the tranquil splendour of a starlight night--a scene which at once proclaims God’s omnipotence, and appears a work fitted to the majesty of the Great Being who created it for his own glory--without becoming imbued with the idea of rest and peace, and desirous of realising these blessings in his own life. “With God and infinity so near us, how we loathe the trifles of existence! and, above all, how we despise and contemn the littleness of our fallen nature! how we repent with bitter tears of shame and contrition the evils they have wrought in ourselves, and through us to others! And how, at such a moment, do the qualities we inherit from heaven--truth, and love, and mercy--expand within us, and fill our souls, and raise us, for the time, above ourselves, and nearer to the high estate from which we have fallen--alas I that it should be only for the time! Coverdale was not insensible to these elevating influences; his love for Alice returned in all its original strength and purity, and he determined, before he slept that night, to bring about a reconciliation, even if his wife should refuse to confess that she had acted wrongly. Yes! he would actually go the length of owning that he had been to blame and was sorry for it, and then Alice would forgive him, and all would be as though this foolish disagreement had never occurred. False reasoning, Harry! there are two things a woman, however thoroughly she may forgive them, never forgets--neglect and unkindness; and when once these have cast their shadow across the bright eager gladness with which she yields up her whole soul as a thank-offering to him she loves, man, with his stronger, sterner nature, can no more bring back the delicacy and freshness of that young affection, than he can restore to the peach the bloom which his careless fingers have profaned--the love may still exist in its full reality, but the bright halo of early romance which surrounded it has been dispelled, never to return. CHAPTER XXVII.--THE PLEASURES OF KEEPING UP THE GAME.