ch she took in everything that
affected him. She was too young and too inexperienced to estimate the
full force of the constant attention which she paid to him. Her father
was too abstractedly immersed in learned and military discussions to
observe her partiality, and Flora Mac-Ivor did not alarm her by
remonstrance, because she saw in this line of conduct the most probable
chance of her friend securing at length a return of affection.

The truth is, that in her first conversation after their meeting Rose had
discovered the state of her mind to that acute and intelligent friend,
although she was not herself aware of it. From that time Flora was not
only determined upon the final rejection of Waverley's addresses, but
became anxious that they should, if possible, be transferred to her
friend. 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 m