There were times when he was even constrained to hope that, by the same Great Influence, a spark of magnanimity had been awakened in Christie's abandoned soul; and once, when Eliza reported that her pa had given her a nickle, he almost believed that those seemingly ineffective words of his had, thanks to that same all-powerful intervention, made an impression.

In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. In this way all respectable burgesses, down to fifty years ago, spent their evenings.

According to the Bible, the rainbow is a token of God's covenant with Noah.

Coward is such an old hand at this kind of thing that he makes it seem old hat.