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 address
the empress of his affections.
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