ilitary honour, seemed exclusively domestic. He asked and
received no share in the busy scenes which were 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