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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