estraint upon your feelings. There are many here whose
eyes can see as clearly as mine, but the prudence of whose tongues may
not be equally trusted.'

So saying, he turned easily away, and joined a circle of officers at
a few paces' distance, leaving Waverley to meditate upon his parting
expression, which though not intelligible to him in its whole purport,
was sufficiently so in the caution which the last word recommended.
Making, therefore, an effort to show himself worthy of the interest
which his new master had expressed, by instant obedience to his
recommendation, he walked up to the spot where Flora and Miss
Bradwardine were still seated, and having made his compliments to the
latter, he succeeded, even beyond his own expectation, in entering into
conversation upon general topics.

If, my dear reader, thou hast ever happened to take post-horses at--,
or at--(one at least of which blanks, or more probably both, you will
be able to fill up from an inn near your own residence), you must have
observed, and doubtless with sympathetic pain, the reluctant agony with
which the poor jades at first apply their galled necks to the collars
of the harness. But when the irresistible arguments of the postboy have
prevailed upon them to proceed a mile or two, they will become callous
to the first sensation; and being warm at the harness, as the said
postboy may term it, proceed as if their withers were altogether
unwrung. This simile so much corresponds with the state of Waverley's
feelings in the course of this memorable evening, that I prefer it
(especially as being, I trust, wholly original) to any more splendid
illustration with which Byshe's ART OF POETRY might supply me.

Exertion, like virtue, is its own reward; and our hero had, moreover,
other stimulating motives for persevering in a display of affected
composure and indifference to Flora's obvious unkindness. Pride, which
supplies its caustic as a useful, though severe, remedy for the wounds
of affection, came rapidly to his aid. Distinguished by the favour of a
Prince; destined, he had room to hope, to play a conspicuous part in
the revolution which awaited a mighty kingdom; excelling, probably,
in mental acquirements, and equalling, at least, in personal
accomplishments, most of the noble and distinguished persons with whom
he was now ranked; young, wealthy, and high-born--could he, or ought he
to droop beneath the frown of a capricious beauty?

O nymph, unr