of attention which Lovel
would have given the world to have rendered, and was only deterred from
offering by the fear of her displeasure. With forlorn dejection at
one moment, and with irritated susceptibility at another, he saw this
handsome young soldier assume and exercise all the privileges of a
cavaliere servente. He handed Miss Wardour's gloves, he assisted her
in putting on her shawl, he attached himself to her in the walks, had a
hand ready to remove every impediment in her path, and an arm to support
her where it was rugged or difficult; his conversation was addressed
chiefly to her, and, where circumstances permitted, it was exclusively
so. All this, Lovel well knew, might be only that sort of egotistical
gallantry which induces some young men of the present day to give
themselves the air of engrossing the attention of the prettiest women in
company, as if the others were unworthy of their notice. But he thought
he observed in the conduct of Captain M'Intyre something of marked and
peculiar tenderness, which was calculated to alarm the jealousy of
a lover. Miss Wardour also received his attentions; and although his
candour allowed they were of a kind which could not be repelled without
some strain of affectation, yet it galled him to the heart to witness
that she did so.

The heart-burning which these reflections occasioned proved very
indifferent seasoning to the dry antiquarian discussions with which
Oldbuck, who continued to demand his particular attention, was
unremittingly persecuting him; and he underwent, with fits of impatience
that amounted almost to loathing, a course of lectures upon monastic
architecture, in all its styles, from the massive Saxon to the florid
Gothic, and from that to the mixed and composite architecture of
James the First's time, when, according to Oldbuck, all orders were
confounded, and columns of various descriptions arose side by side, or
were piled above each other, as if symmetry had been forgotten, and the
elemental principles of art resolved into their primitive confusion.
"What can be more cutting to the heart than the sight of evils," said
Oldbuck, in rapturous enthusiasm, "which we are compelled to behold,
while we do not possess the power of remedying them?" Lovel answered by
an involulatary groan. "I see, my dear young friend, and most congenial
spirit, that you feel these enormities almost as much as I do. Have you
ever approached them, or met them, without longing