CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
Nay, if she love me not, I care not for her: Shall I look pale because the maiden blooms Or sigh because she smiles, and smiles on others Not I, by Heaven!--I hold my peace too dear, To let it, like the plume upon her cap, Shake at each nod that her caprice shall dictate.
Old Play.
"Hector," said his uncle to Captain M'Intyre, in the course of their walk homeward, "I am sometimes inclined to suspect that, in one respect, you are a fool." "If you only think me so in one respect, sir, I am sure you do me more grace than I expected or deserve." "I mean in one particular par excellence," answered the Antiquary.

"I have sometimes thought that you have cast your eyes upon Miss Wardour." "Well, sir," said M'Intyre, with much composure.
"Well, sir," echoed his uncle--"Deuce take the fellow! he answers me as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, that he, a captain in the army, and nothing at all besides, should marry the daughter of a baronet." "I presume to think, sir," said the young Highlander, "there would be no degradation on Miss Wardour's part in point of family." "O, Heaven forbid we should come on that topic!--No, no, equal both--both on the table-land of gentility, and qualified to look down on every roturier in Scotland." "And in point of fortune we are pretty even, since neither of us have got any," continued Hector.

"There may be an error, but I cannot plead guilty to presumption." "But here lies the error, then, if you call it so," replied his uncle: "she won't have you, Hector." "Indeed, sir ?" "It is very sure, Hector; and to make it double sure, I must inform you that she likes another man.

She misunderstood some words I once said to her, and I have since been able to guess at the interpretation she put on them.

At the time I was unable to account for her hesitation and blushing; but, my poor Hector, I now understand them as a death-signal to your hopes and pretensions.