In short, he shut his eyes so resolutely to the natural consequences of
Edward's intimacy with Miss Bradwardine, that the whole neighbourhood
concluded that he had opened them to the advantages of a match between
his daughter and the wealthy young Englishman, and pronounced him much
less a fool than he had generally shown himself in cases where his own
interest was concerned.
If the Baron, however, had really meditated such an alliance, the
indifference of Waverley would have been an insuperable bar to his
project. Our hero, since mixing more freely with the world, had learned
to think with great shame and confusion upon his mental legend of Saint
Cecilia, and the vexation of these reflections was likely, for some time
at least, to counterbalance the natural susceptibility of his
disposition. Besides, Rose Bradwardine, beautiful and amiable as we have
described her, had not precisely the sort of beauty or merit which
captivates a romantic imagination in early youth. She was too frank, too
confiding, too kind; amiable qualities, undoubtedly, but destructive of
the marvellous, with which a youth of imagination delights to dress the
empress of his affections.
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