sharpened by the habit of acting on a preconceived and regular system, as well as by extensive knowledge of the world.

When Edward found his friend, the lat ter had still in his hand the newspaper which he had perused, and advanced to meet him with the embarrassment of one who has unpleasing news to communicate. "Do your letters, Captain Waverley, confirm the unpleasing information which I find in this paper ?”

He put the paper into his hand, where his father's disgrace was registered in the most bitter terms, transferred probably from some London journal. At the end of the paragraph was this remarkable inu. endo :

"We understand that 'this same Richard who hath done all this,' is not the only example of the Wavering Honour of W-v-rby H-n-r. See the Gazette of this day."

With hurried and feverish apprehension our hero turned to the place referred to, and found therein recorded," Edward

Waverley, captain in

regiment dra

goons, superseded for absence without leave;" and in the list of military promotions, referring to the same regiment, he discovered this farther article, "Lieut. Julius Butler to be captain, vice Edward Waverley superseded."

Our hero's bosom glowed with the resentment which undeserved and apparently premeditated insult was calculated to excite in the bosom of one who had aspired after honour, and was thus wantonly held up to public scorn and disgrace. Upon comparing the date of his colonel's letter with that of the article in the Gazette, he perceived that his threat of making a report upon his absence had been literally complied with, and without enquiry, as it seemed, whether Edward had either received his summons, or was disposed to comply with it. The whole, therefore, appeared a formed plan to degrade him in the eyes of the public; and the idea of its having succeeded filled him with such bit

ter emotions, that, after various attempts to conceal them, he at length threw himself into Mac-Ivor's arms, and gave vent to tears of shame and indignation.

It was none of this Chieftain's faults to be indifferent to the wrongs of his friends; and for Edward, independent of certain plans with which he was connected, he felt a deep and sincere interest. The proceeding appeared as extraordinary to him as it had done to Edward. He indeed knew of more motives than Waverley was privy to for the peremptory order that he should join his regiment. But that, without farther enquiry into the circumstances of a necessary delay, the commanding ofcer, in contradiction to his known and established character, should have proceeded in so harsh and unusual a manner, was a mystery which he could not penetrate. He soothed our hero, however, to the best of his power, and began to turn his thoughts on revenge for his insulted honour.

1

Edward eagerly grasped at the idea. "Will you carry a message for me to Colonel G, my dear Fergus, and oblige me for ever ?"

Fergus paused; "It is an act of friendship which you should command, could it be useful, or lead to the righting your honour; but in the present case, I doubt if your commanding officer would give you the meeting on account of his having taken measures, which, however harsh and exasperating, were still within the strict bounds of his duty. Besides, G is a precise Huguenot, and has adopted certain ideas about the sinfulness of such rencontres, from which it would be impossible to make him depart, especially as his courage is beyond all suspicion. And besides, II-to say the truth-I dare not at this moment, for some very weighty reasons, go near any of the military quarters or garrisons belonging to this government."

"And am I to sit down quiet and contented under the injury I have received?"

"That will I never advise, my friend. But I would have vengeance to fall on the head, not on the hand; on the tyrannical and oppressive government which designed and directed these premeditated and reiterated insults, not on the tools of office which they employed in the execution of the injuries they aimed at you.”

"Yes, upon the usurping house of Hanover, whom your grandfather would no more have served than he would have taken wages of red-hot gold from the great fiend of hell!"

"But since the time of my grandfather two generations of this dynasty have possessed the throne."

"True; and because we have passively given them so long an opportunity of shewing their native character,--because both you and I myself have lived in quiet submission, have even truckled to the times so far as to accept commissions under them, and thus have given them an