After they had marched on in this sullen manner about a mile, Fergus
resumed the discourse in a different tone. 'I believe I was warm, my dear
Edward, but you provoke me with your want of knowledge of the world. You
have taken pet at some of Flora's prudery, or high-flying notions of
loyalty, and now, like a child, you quarrel with the plaything you have
been crying for, and beat me, your faithful keeper, because my arm cannot
reach to Edinburgh to hand it to you. I am sure, if I was passionate, the
mortification of losing the alliance of such a friend, after your
arrangement had been the talk of both Highlands and Lowlands, and that
without so much as knowing why or wherefore, might well provoke calmer
blood than mine. I shall write to Edinburgh and put all to rights; that
is, if you desire I should do so; as indeed I cannot suppose that your
good opinion of Flora, it being such as you have often expressed to me,
can be at once laid aside.'
'Colonel Mac-Ivor,' said Edward, who had no mind to be hurried farther or
faster than he chose in a matter which he had already considered as
broken off, 'I am fully sensible of the value of your good offices; and
certainly, by your zeal on my behalf in such an affair, you do me no
small honour.
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