All these advantages moved Squire Stubbs, as much as the ruddy
brown and manly form of the suitor influenced his daughter, to abate
somewhat in the article of their gentry; and so the match was concluded.
None seemed more gratified than Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked
rather askance upon the presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as
her nature would permit), but who, on the first appearance of the
new-married pair at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a
profound curtsy, in presence of the rector, the curate, the clerk, and
the whole congregation of the united parishes of Waverley cum Beverley.
I beg pardon, once and for all, of those readers who take up novels
merely for amusement, for plaguing them so long with old-fashioned
politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and Jacobites. The truth is,
I cannot promise them that this story shall be intelligible, not to say
probable, without it. My plan requires that I should explain the motives
on which its action proceeded; and these motives necessarily arose from
the feelings, prejudices, and parties of the times. I do not invite my
fair readers, whose sex and impatience give them the greatest right to
complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot drawn by
hippogriffs, or moved by enchantment.
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