fate; they have been much admired, I assure you. The next point is-I think I saw Flora go up towards the water-fall a short time since-follow, man, follow!don't allow the garrison time to strengthen its purposes of resistance-Alerte a la muraille! Seek Flora out, and learn her decision as soon as you can, and Cupid go with you, while I go to look over belts and cartouch-boxes."

Waverley ascended the glen with an anxious and throbbing heart. Love, with all its romantic train of hopes, fears, and wishes, was mingled with other feelings of a nature less easily defined. He could not but remember how much this morning had changed his fate, and into what a complication of perplexity it was likely to plunge him. Sun-rise had seen him possessed of an esteemed rank in the honourable profession of arms, his father to all appearance rapidly rising in the favour of his sovereign;-all this had passed away like a dream-he himself was dishonoured, his

father disgraced, and he had become involuntarily the confidant at least, if not the accomplice, of plans, dark, deep, and dangerous, which must infer either the subversion of the government he had so lately served, or the destruction of all who had participated in them. Should Flora even listen to his suit favourably, what prospect was there of its being brought to a happy termination amid the tumult of an impending insurrection? Or how could he make the selfish request that she should leave Fergus, to whom she was so much attached, and, retiring with him to England, wait, as a distant spectator, the success of her brother's undertaking, or the ruin of all his hopes and fortunes ?-Or, on the other hand, to engage himself, with no other aid than his single arm, in the dangerous and precipitate councils of the Chieftain, to be whirled along by him, the partaker of all his desperate and impetuous motions, renouncing almost the power of judging, or deciding upon the

rectitude or prudence of his actions,-this was no pleasing prospect for the secret pride of Waverley to stoop to. And yet what other conclusion remained, saving the rejection of his addresses by Flora, an alternative not to be thought of, in the present high-wrought state of his feelings, with any thing short of mental agony. Pondering the doubtful and dangerous prospect before him, he at length arrived near the cascade, where, as Fergus had augured, he found Flora seated.

She was quite alone, and as soon as she observed his approach, she rose and came to meet him. Edward attempted to say something within the verge of ordinary compliment and conversation, but found himself unequal to the task. Flora seemed at first equally embarrassed, but recovered herself more speedily, and (an unfavourable augury for Waverley's suit) was the first to enter upon the subject of their last interview. "It is too important, in every point of view, Mr Waverley, to

permit me to leave you in doubt upon my sentiments."

"Do not speak them speedily, unless they are such as I fear, from your manner, I must not dare to anticipate. Let timelet my future conduct-let your brother's influence"

"Forgive me, Mr Waverley. I should incur my own heavy censure did I delay expressing my sincere conviction that I can never regard you otherwise than as a valued friend. I should do you the highest injustice did I conceal my sentiments for a moment-I see I distress. you, and I grieve for it, but better now than later; and O better a thousand times, Mr Waverley, that you should feel a present momentary disappointment, than the long and heart-sickening griefs which attend a rash and ill-assorted marriage !"

"Good God! But why should you anticipate such consequences from an union where birth is equal, where fortune is favourable, where, if I may venture to say

so, the taste is similar, where you allege no preference, where you even express a favourable opinion of him whom you reject ?"

"Mr Waverley, I have that favourable opinion, and so strongly, that though I would rather have been silent upon the grounds of my resolution, you shall command them, if you exact such a mark of my esteem and confidence."

She sat down upon the fragment of a rock, and Waverley, placing himself near her, anxiously pressed for the explanation she offered.

"I dare hardly," she said, "tell you the situation of my feelings, they are so different from those usually ascribed to young women at my period of life; and I dare hardly touch upon what I think the nature of yours, lest I should give offence where I would willingly administer consolation. For myself, from my infancy till this day, I have had but one wishthe restoration of my royal benefactors to