Perhaps the
delight which she experienced in the course of that evening, though
transient, and followed by much sorrow, was in its nature the most pure
and disinterested which the human mind is capable of enjoying.
'Baron,' said the Chevalier, 'I would not trust my mistress in the
company of your young friend. He is really, though perhaps somewhat
romantic, one of the most fascinating young men whom I have ever seen.'
'And by my honour, sir,' replied the Baron,'the lad can sometimes be as
dowff as a sexagenary like myself. If your Royal Highness had seen him
dreaming and dozing about the banks of Tully-Veolan like an hypochondriac
person, or, as Burton's "Anatomia" hath it, a phrenesiac or lethargic
patient, you would wonder where he hath sae suddenly acquired all this
fine sprack festivity and jocularity.'
'Truly,' said Fergus Mac-Ivor, 'I think it can only be the inspiration of
the tartans; for, though Waverley be always a young fellow of sense and
honour, I have hitherto often found him a very absent and inattentive
companion.'
'We are the more obliged to him,' said the Prince, 'for having reserved
for this evening qualities which even such intimate friends had not
discovered.
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