has given that object any passable proportion of
personal charms, he can easily play the Jeweller and Dervise in the
Oriental tale, [Footnote: 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. Even the most simple and unsuspicious
of the female sex have (God bless them!) an instinctive sharpness of
perception in such matters, which sometimes goes the length of observing
partialities that never existed, but rarely misses to detect such as pass
actually under their observation. Mrs. Rachel applied herself with great
prudence, not to combat, but to elude, the approaching danger, and
suggested to her brother the necessity that the heir of his house should
see something more of the world than was consistent with constant
residence at Waverley-Honour.

Sir Everard would not at first listen to a proposal which went to
separate his nephew from him. Edward was a little bookish, he admitted,
but youth, he had always heard, was the season for learning, and, no
doubt, when his rage for letters was abated, and his head fully stocked
with knowledge, his nephew would take to field-sports and country
business. He had often, he said, himself regretted that he had not spent
some time in study during his youth: he would neither have shot nor
hunted with less skill, and he might have made the roof of Saint
Stephen's echo to longer orations than were comprised in those zealous
Noes, with which, when a member of the House during Godolphin's
administration, he encountered every measure of government.

Aunt Rachel's anxiety, however, lent her address to carry her point.
Every representative of their house had visited foreign parts, or served
his country in the army, before he settled for life at Waverley-Honour,
and she appealed for the truth of her assertion to the genealogical
pedigree, an authority which Sir Everard was never known to contradict.
In short, a proposal was made to Mr. Richard Waverley, that his son
should travel, under the direction of his present tutor Mr. Pembroke,
with a suitable allowance from the Baronet's liberality. The father
himself saw no