, that Miss
Cecilia more than once crossed Edward in his favourite walks through
Waverley-Chase. He had not as yet assumed courage to accost her on these
occasions; but the meeting was not without its effect. A romantic lover is a
strange idolater, who sometimes cares not out of what log he frames the object
of his adoration; at least, if nature has given that object any passable
proportion of personal charms, he can easily play the Jeweller and Dervise in
the Oriental tale,8 and supply her richly, out of the stores of his own
imagination, with supernatural beauty, and all the properties of intellectual
wealth.
    But ere the charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs had erected her into a positive
goddess, or elevated her at least to a level with the saint her namesake, Mrs.
Rachel Waverley gained some intimation which determined her to prevent the
approaching apotheosis. Even the most simple and unsuspicious of the female sex
have (God bless them!) an instinctive sharpness of perception in such matters,
which sometimes goes the length of observing partialities that never existed,
but rarely misses to detect such as pass actually under their observation. Mrs.
Rachel applied herself with great prudence, not to combat, but to elude the
approaching danger, and suggested to her brother the necessity that the heir of
his house should see something more of the world than was consistent with
constant residence at Waverley-Honour.
    Sir Everard would not at first listen to a proposal which went to separate
his nephew from him. Edward was a little bookish, he admitted, but youth, he had
always heard, was the season for learning, and, no doubt, when his rage for
letters was abated, and his head fully stocked with knowledge, his nephew would
take to field sports and country business. He had often, he said, himself
regretted that he had not spent some time in study during his youth: he would
neither have shot nor hunted with less skill, and he might have made the roof of
St. Stephen's echo to longer orations than were comprised in those zealous Noes
with which, when a member of the House during Godolphin's administration, he
encountered every measure of government.
    Aunt Rachel's anxiety, however, lent her address to carry her point. Every
representative of their house had visited foreign parts, or served his country
in the army, before he settled for life at Waverley-Honour, and she appealed for
the truth of her assertion to the genealogical pedigree, an authority which Sir
Everard was never known to contradict. In short, a proposal was made to Mr
