h it
excited the clansmen so that they sprang up in ecstasy, many of them
waving their arms about in sympathy with the warlike verses. The Chief,
exactly in the ancient manner, presented a silver cup full of wine to
the minstrel. He was to drink the one and keep the other for himself.

After a few more toasts, Vich Ian Vohr offered to take Waverley up to be
presented to his sister. They found Flora Mac-Ivor in her parlour, a
plain and bare chamber with a wide prospect from the windows. She had
her brother's dark curling hair, dark eyes, and lofty expression, but
her expression seemed sweeter, though not, perhaps, softer. She was,
however, even more fiercely Jacobite than her brother, and her devotion
to "the King over the Water" (as they called King James) was far more
unselfish than that of Vich Ian Vohr. Flora Mac-Ivor had been educated
in a French convent, yet now she gave herself heart and soul to the good
of her wild Highland clan and to the service of him whom she looked on
as the true King.

She was gracious to Edward, and at the request of Fergus, told him the
meaning of the war-song he had been listening to in the hall. She was,
her brother said, famed for her translations from Gaelic into English,
but for the present she could not be persuaded to recite any of these to
Edward.

He had better fortune, however, when, finding Flora Mac-Ivor in a wild
spot by a waterfall, she sang him, to the accompaniment of a harp, a
song of great chiefs and their deeds which fired the soul of the young
man. He could not help admiring--he almost began to love her from that
moment.

After this reception, Edward continued very willingly at
Glennaquoich--both because of his growing admiration for Flora, and
because his curiosity increased every day as to this wild race, and the
life so different from all that he had hitherto known. Nothing occurred
for three weeks to disturb his pleasant dreams, save the chance
discovery, made when he was writing a letter to the Baron, that he had
somehow lost his seal with the arms of Waverley, which he wore attached
to his watch. Flora was inclined to blame Donald Bean Lean for the
theft, but the Chief scouted the idea. It was impossible, he said, when
Edward was his guest, and, besides (he added slyly), Donald would never
have taken the seal and left the watch. Whereupon Edward borrowed Vich
Ian Vohr's seal, and, having despatched his letter, thought no more of
the matter.

Soon afterward