She appeared, indeed, in full splendour in her father's pew upon the Sunday when he attended service for the last time at the old parish church, upon which occasion, at the request of his uncle and Aunt Rachel, he was induced (nothing both, if the truth must be told) to present himself in full uniform.
There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an opinion of others than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same time.
Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every assistance which art could afford to beauty; but, alas! hoop, patches, frizzled locks, and a new mantua of genuine French silk, were lost upon a young officer of dragoons who wore for the first time his gold-laced hat, jack-boots, and broadsword.

I know not whether, like the champion of an old ballad,-- His heart was all on honour bent, He could not stoop to love; No lady in the land had power His frozen heart to move; or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which now fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes; but every arrow was launched at him in vain.
Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light; It lighted not on little western flower, But on bold yeoman, flower of all the west, Hight Jonas Culbertfield, the steward's son.
Craving pardon for my heroics (which I am unable in certain cases to resist giving way to), it is a melancholy fact, that my history must here take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many a daughter of Eve, after the departure of Edward, and the dissipation of certain idle visions which she had adopted, quietly contented herself with a pisaller, and gave her hand, at the distance of six months, to the aforesaid Jonas, son of the Baronet's steward, and heir (no unfertile prospect) to a steward's fortune, besides the snug probability of succeeding to his father's office.

All these advantages moved Squire Stubbs, as much as the ruddy brown and manly form of the suitor influenced his daughter, to abate somewhat in the article of their gentry; and so the match was concluded.
None seemed more gratified than Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as her nature would permit), but who, on the first appearance of the new-married pair at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a profound curtsy, in presence of the rector, the curate, the clerk, and the whole congregation of the united parishes of Waverley cum Beverley.
I beg pardon, once and for all, of those readers who take up novels merely for amusement, for plaguing them so long with old-fashioned politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and Jacobites.

The truth is, I cannot promise them that this story shall be intelligible, not to say probable, without it.

My plan requires that I should explain the motives on which its action proceeded; and these motives necessarily arose from the feelings, prejudices, and parties of the times.