Nor was she less interested in this plan, though her brother had from time to time talked, as between jest and earnest, of paying his suit to Miss Bradwardine.

She knew that Fergus had the true continental latitude of opinion respecting the institution of marriage, and would not have given his hand to an angel, unless for the purpose of strengthening his alliances, and increasing his influence and wealth.

The Baron's whim of transferring his estate to the distant heir-male instead of his own daughter, was therefore likely to be an insurmountable obstacle to his entertaining any serious thoughts of Rose Bradwardine.

Indeed, Fergus's brain was a perpetual workshop of scheme and intrigue of every possible kind and description; while, like many a mechanic of more ingenuity than steadiness, he would often unexpectedly and without any apparent motive, abandon one plan, and go earnestly to work upon another, which was either fresh from the forge of his imagination, or had at some former period been flung aside half finished.

It was therefore often difficult to guess what line of conduct he might finally adopt upon any given occasion.
Although Flora was sincerely attached to her brother, whose high energies might indeed have commanded her admiration even without the ties which bound them together, she was by no means blind to his faults, which she considered as dangerous to the hopes of any woman who should found her ideas of a happy marriage in the peaceful enjoyment of domestic society, and the exchange of mutual and engrossing affection.
The real disposition of Waverley, on the other hand, notwithstanding his dreams of tented fields and military honour, seemed exclusively domestic.