REPENTANCE AND A RECONCILIATION Waverley was unaccustomed to the use of wine, excepting with great temperance.

He slept, therefore, soundly till late in the succeeding morning, and then awakened to a painful recollection of the scene of the preceding evening.

He had received a personal affront,--he, a gentleman, a soldier, and a Waverley.

True, the person who had offered it was not, at the time it was given, possessed of the moderate share of sense which nature had allotted him; true also, in resenting this insult, he would break the laws of Heaven, as well as of his country; true, in doing so, he might take the life of a young man who perhaps respectably discharged the social duties, and render his family miserable; or he might lose his own;--no pleasant alternative even to the bravest, when it is debated coolly and in private.
All this pressed on his mind; yet the original statement recurred with the same irresistible force.

He had received a personal insult; he was of the house of Waverley; and he bore a commission.