Guy Mannering.

170 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" Yet why should an individual mourn over the instability
of his hopes, and the vanity of his prospects? The
ancient chiefs, who erected these enormous and massive
towers to be the fortress of their race, and the seat of
their power,-could they have dreamed the day was to
come, when the last of their descendants should be expelled, a ruined wanderer, from his possessions! But
Nature's bounties are unaltered. The sun will shine as
fair on these ruins, whether the property of a stranger, or
of a sordid and obscure trickster of the abused law, as
when the banners of the founder first waved upon their
battlements."
These reflections brought Mannering to the door of the
house, which was that day open to all. He entered
among others, who traversed the apartments-some to
select articles for purchase, others to gratify their curiosity. There is something melancholy in such a scene,
even under the imost favourable circumstances. The confused state of the furniture, displaced for the convenience
of being easily viewed and carried off by the purchasers,
is disagreeable to the eye. Those articles which, properly and decently arranged, look creditable and handsome,
have then a paltry and wretched appearance; and the
apartments, stripped of all that render them commodious
and comfortable, have an aspect of ruin and dilapidation.
It is disgusting, also, to see the scenes of domestic society
and seclusion thrown open to the gaze of the curious and
the vulgar; to hear their coarse speculations and brutal
jests upon the fashions and furniture to which they are
unaccustomed, —a frolicsome humour, much cherished by
the whisky which in Scotland is always put in circulation
on such occasions. All these are ordinary effects of such
a scene as Ellangowan now presented; but the moral