Female forms of exquisite grace and beauty began to mingle in his mental adventures; nor was he long without looking abroad to compare the creatures of his own imagination with the females of actual life.
The list of the beauties who displayed their hebdomadal finery at the parish church of Waverley was neither numerous nor select.

By far the most passable was Miss Sissly, or, as she rather chose to be called, Miss Cecilia Stubbs, daughter of Squire Stubbs at the Grange.

I know not whether it was by the 'merest accident in the world,' a phrase which, from female lips, does not always exclude MALICE PREPENSE, or whether it was from a conformity of taste, that Miss Cecilia more than once crossed Edward in his favourite walks through Waverley-Chase.

He had not as yet assumed courage to accost her on these occasions; but the meeting was not without its effect.

A romantic lover is a strange idolater, who sometimes cares not out of what log he frames the object of his adoration; at least, if nature has given that object any passable proportion of personal charms, he can easily play the jeweller and Dervise in the Oriental tale, [See Hoppner's tale of The Seven Lovers.] and supply her richly, out of the stores of his own imagination, with supernatural beauty, and all the properties of intellectual wealth.
But ere the charms of Miss Cecilia Stubbs had erected her into a positive goddess, or elevated her at least to a level with the saint her namesake, Mrs.Rachel Waverley gained some intimation which determined her to prevent the approaching apotheosis.