CHAPTER LIV.
'TO ONE THING CONSTANT NEVER' 'I am the very child of caprice,' said Waverley to himself, as he bolted the door of his apartment, and paced it with hasty steps.--'What is it to me that Fergus Mac-Ivor should wish to marry Rose Bradwardine ?--I love her not .-- I might have been loved by her, perhaps; but I rejected her simple, natural, and affecting attachment, instead of cherishing it into tenderness, and dedicated myself to one who will never love mortal man, unless old Warwick, the King-maker, should arise from the dead.
The Baron, too--I would not have cared about his estate, and so the name would have been no stumbling-block, The devil might have taken the barren moors, and drawn off the royal CALIGAE, for anything I would have minded.

But, framed as she is for domestic affection and tenderness, for giving and receiving all those kind and quiet attentions which sweeten life to those who pass it together, she is sought by Fergus Mac-Ivor.

He will not use her ill, to be sure--of that he is incapable--but he will neglect her after the first month; he will be too intent on subduing some rival chieftain, or circumventing some favourite at court, on gaining some heathy hill and lake, or adding to his bands some new troop of caterans, to inquire what she does, or how she amuses herself.
And then will canker sorrow eat her bud, And chase the native beauty from her cheek; And she will look as hollow as a ghost, And dim and meagre as an ague fit, And so she'll die.
And such a catastrophe of the most gentle creature on earth might have been prevented, if Mr.Edward Waverley had had his eyes! Upon my word, I cannot understand how I thought Flora so much--that is, so very much--handsomer than Rose.

She is taller, indeed, and her manner more formed; but many people think Miss Bradwardine's more natural; and she is certainly much younger.

I should think Flora is two years older than I am--I will look at them particularly this evening.' And with this resolution Waverley went to drink tea (as the fashion was Sixty Years since) at the house of a lady of quality attached to the cause of the Chevalier, where he found, as he expected, both the ladies.
All rose as he entered, but Flora immediately resumed her place, and the conversation in which she was engaged.