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.