sis, to use the only remaining remedy which is in my power. You are, therefore, hereby commanded to repair to, the head-quarters of the regiment, within three days after the date of this letter. If you shall fail to do so, I must report you to the War Office as absent without leave, and also take other steps, which will be disagreeable to you, as well as to, Sir,

"Your obedient Servant,

'J. G, Lieut. Col. "Commanding the →→→ Regt. Dragoons."

Edward's blood boiled within him as he read this letter. He had been accustomed from his very infancy to possess, in a great measure, the disposal of his own time, and had thus acquired habits which rendered the rules of military discipline as unpleasing to him in this as they were in some other respects. An idea that in his own case they would not be enforced in a very rigid, manner, had also obtained full possession

of his mind, and had hitherto been sanc tioned by the indulgent conduct of his lieutenant-colonel. Neither had any thing occurred, to his knowledge, that should have induced his commanding officer, without any other warning than the hints we noticed at the end of the fourteenth chapter of the last volume, so suddenly to assume a harsh, and, as Edward deemed it, so insolent a tone of dictatorial authority. Connecting it with the letters he had just received from his family, he could not but suppose, that it was designed to make him feel, in his present situation, the same pressure of authority which had been exercised in his father's case, and that the whole was a concerted scheme to depress and degrade every member of the Waverley family.

Without a pause, therefore, Edward wrote a few cold lines, thanking his lieutenant colonel for past civilities, and expressing regret that he should have chosen to efface the remembrance of them, by as

suming a different tone towards him. The strain of his letter, as well as what he (Edward) conceived to be his duty, in the present crisis, called upon him to lay down. his commission; and he, therefore inclosed the formal resignation of a situation which subjected him to so unpleasant; a correspondence, and requested Colonel Gwould have the goodness to forward it to the proper authorities.

Having finished this magnanimous.epistle, he felt somewhat uncertain concerning the terms in which his resignation ought. to be expressed, upon which subject he resolved to consult Fergus Mac-Iyor. It may be observed in passing, that the bold. and prompt habits of thinking, acting, and speaking, which distinguished this young Chieftain, had given him a considerable ascendancy over the mind of Wayerley.. Endowed with at least equal powers of understanding, and with much finer genius, Edward yet stooped to the bold and decisive activity of an intellect which was

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 latterhad 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 L 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 sonie London journal. At the end of the paragraph was this remarkable inus endo:

“We understand that this same Richard who hath done all this, is not the only example of the Wavering Honour of W÷v-r1-y H-n-r. See the Gazette of this day."

لله

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

Waverley, captain in —— regiment dragoons, 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. Up- i on comparing the date of his colonel's let-. ter 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

a