The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

588 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
of mortals must be ranked with the weakest of his brethren; and when, in
paying the general tax of humanity, his distresses are even aggravated byh
feeling that he transgresses, in the indulgence of his grief, the rules of religion and philosophy, by which he endeavours in general to regulate his
passions and his actions. It was during such a paroxysm that the unfortunate Morton left Fairy-Knowe. To know that his long-loved and still
beloved Edith, whose image had filled his mind for so many years, was on
the point of marriage to his early rival, who had laid claim to her heart by
so many services, as hardly left her a title to refuse his addresses, bitter Ias
the intelligence was, yet came not as an unexpected blow.
During his residence abroad, he had once written to Edith. It was to bid
her farewell for ever, and to conjure her to forget him. He had requested
her not to answer his letter, yet he half hoped, for many a day, that she
might transgress his injunction. The letter never reached her to whom1 it
was addressed, and Morton, ignorant of its miscarriage, could only conclude
himself laid aside and forgotten, accordhing to his own self-denying request.
All that he had heard of their mutual relations since his return.to Scotlancd,
prepared him to expect that he could only look upon Miss Bellenden as the
betrothed bride of Lord Evandale; and, even if fieed fi'om the burden of
obligation to the latter, it would still have been inconsistent with Morton's
generosity of disposition to disturb their, arrangements, by attempting the
assertion of a claim, proscribed by absence, never sanctioned by the consent
of friends, and barred by a thousand circumstances of difficulty. Why,
then, did he seek the cottage which their broken fortunes had now rendered
the retreat of Lady Margaret Bellenden and her grand-daughter? He
yielded, we are under the necessity of acknowledging, to the impulse of an
inconsistent wish, which many might-have felt in his situation.
Accident apprized him, while travelling towards his native district, that
the ladies, near whose mansion he must necessarily pass, were absent; and
learning that Cuddie and his wife acted as their principal domestics, he
could not resist pausing at their cottage, to learn, if possible, the real progress which Lord Evandale had made in the affections of Miss Bellendenalas! no longer his Edith. This rash experiment ended as we have related,
and he parted from the house of Fairy-Knowe, conscious that he was still
beloved by Edith, yet compelled, by faith and honour, to relinquish her for
ever. With what feelings he must have listened to the dialogue between
Lord Evancldale and Edith, the greater part of which he involuntarily overheard, the reader must conceive, for we dare not attempt to describe them.
An hundred times he was tempted to burst upon their interview, or to
exclaim aloud, "Edith, I yet live!"-and as often the recollection of her
plighted troth, and of the debt of gratitude which he owed Lord Evandale
ito whose influence with Claverhouse he justly ascribed his escape from torture and from death), withheld him from a rashness which might indeed have
involved all in further distress, but gave little prospect of forwarding his
own happiness. He repressed forcibly these selfish emotions, though with
an agony which thrilled his every nerve.
" No, Edith!" was his internal oath, " never will I add a thorn to thy
pillow-That which Heaven has ordained, let it be; and let me not add, by
my selfish sorrows, one atom's weight to the burden thou hast to bear. I
was dead to thee when thy resolution was adopted; -and never-never shalt
thou know that Henry Morton still lives!"
As he formed this resolution, diffident of his own power to keep it, and
seeking that firmness in flight which was every moment shaken by his continuing within hearing of Edith's voice, he hastily rushed from his apartment by the little closet and the sashed door which led to the garden.
But firmly as he thought his resolution was fixed, he could not leave the
spot where the last tones of a voice so beloved still vibrated on his ear, without endeavouring to avail himself of the opportunity which the parlour win