constantly going on around him, and was rather annoyed than interested
by the discussion of contending claims, rights, and interests, which
often passed in his presence. All this pointed him out as the person
formed to make happy a spirit like that of Rose, which corresponded with
his own.

She remarked this point in Waverley's character one day while she sat
with Miss Bradwardine. 'His genius and elegant taste,' answered Rose,
'cannot be interested in such trifling discussions. What is it to him,
for example, whether the Chief of the Macindallaghers, who has brought
out only fifty men, should be a colonel or a captain? and how could
Mr. Waverley be supposed to interest himself in the violent altercation
between your brother and young Corrinaschian, whether the post of honour
is due to the eldest cadet of a clan or the youngest?' 'My dear Rose,
if he were the hero you suppose him, he would interest himself in these
matters, not indeed as important in themselves, but for the purpose
of mediating between the ardent spirits who actually do make them the
subject of discord. You saw when Corrinaschian raised his voice in great
passion, and laid his hand upon his sword, Waverley lifted his head as
if he had just awaked from a dream, and asked, with great composure,
what the matter was.'

'Well, and did not the laughter they fell into at his absence of mind,
serve better to break off the dispute than anything he could have said
to them?'

'True, my dear,' answered Flora; 'but not quite so creditably for
Waverley as if he had brought them to their senses by force of reason.'

'Would you have him peacemaker general between all the gunpowder
Highlanders in the army? I beg your pardon, Flora--your brother, you
know, is out of the question; he has more sense than half of them. But
can you think the fierce, hot, furious spirits, of whose brawls we see
much, and hear more, and who terrify me out of my life every day in the
world, are at all to be compared to Waverley?'

'I do not compare him with those uneducated men, my dear Rose. I only
lament, that, with his talents and genius, he does not assume that place
in society for which they eminently fit him, and that he does not lend
their full impulse to the noble cause in which he has enlisted. Are
there not Lochiel, and P--, and M--, and G--, all men of the highest
education, as well as the first talents?--why will he not stoop like
them to be alive and useful?--I often believe