All the company applauded with
their hands, and many with their tears. Flora, to whom the drama was
well known, was among the former; Rose, to whom it was altogether new,
belonged to the latter class of admirers. 'She has more feeling, too,'
said Waverley, internally.
The conversation turning upon the incidents of the play, and upon the
characters, Fergus declared that the only one worth naming, as a man of
fashion and spirit, was Mercutio. 'I could not,' he said, 'quite follow
all his old-fashioned wit, but he must have been a very pretty fellow,
according to the ideas of his time.'
'And it was a shame,' said Ensign Maccombich, who usually followed his
Colonel everywhere, 'for that Tibbert, or Taggart, or whatever was his
name, to stick him under the other gentleman's arm while he was redding
the fray.'
The ladies, of course, declared loudly in favour of Romeo; but this
opinion did not go undisputed. The mistress of the house, and several
other ladies, severely reprobated the levity with which the hero
transfers his affections from Rosalind to Juliet. Flora remained silent
until her opinion was repeatedly requested, and then answered, she
thought the circumstance objected to not only reconcilable to nature,
but such as in the highest degree evinced the art of the poet.
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