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.

100 WAVEIRLEY NOVELS.
their tapestry. His destination for the church rendered his conduct less
absurd in his father's eyes, than if any of his other descendants had betrayed
so strange a propensity, and Sir Hildebrand acquiesced in the library receiving some repairs, so as to fit it for a sitting-room. Still an air of dilapidation, as obvious as it was uncomfortable, pervaded the large apartment,
and announced the neglect from which the knowledge which its walls contained had not been able to exempt it. The tattered tapestry, the wormeaten shelves, the huge and clumsy, yet tottering, tables, desks, and chairs,
the rusty grate, seldom gladdened by either sea-coal or fagots, intimated the
contempt of the lords of Osbaldistone-Ilall for learning, and for the volumes
which record its treasures.
"You think this place somewhat disconsolate, I suppose?" said Diana, as
I glanced my eye round the forlorn apartment; "but to me it seems like
a little paradise, for I call it my own, and fear no intrusion. Rashleigh
was joint proprietor with me, while we were friends."
"And are you no longer so?" was my natural question.
Her fore-finger immediately touched her dimpled chin, wvith an arch look
of prohibition.
"We are still allies," she continued, "bound, like other confederate
powers, by circumstances of mutual interest; but I am afraid, as will happen
in other cases, the treaty of alliance has survived th6 amicable dispositions
in which it had its origin. At any rate, we live less together; and when
he comes through that door there, I vanish through this door here; and so,
having made the discovery that we two were one too many for this apartment, as large as it seems, Rashleigh, whose occasions frequently call him
elsewhere, has generously made a cession of his rights in my favour; so
that I now endeavour to prosecute alone the studies in which he used
formerly to be my guide."
"And what are those studies, if I may presume to ask?"
"Indeed you may, without the least fear of seeing my fore-finger raised
to my chin. Science and history are my principal favourites; but I also
study poetry and the classics."
"And the classics? Do you read them in the original?"
"Unquestionably. Rashleigh, who is no contemptible scholar, taught
me Greek and Latin, as well as most of the languages of modern Europe.
I assure you, there has been some pains taken in my education, although I
can neither sew a tucker, nor work cross-stitch, nor make a pudding, noras the vicar's fat wife, with as much truth as elegance, good-will, and politeness, was pleased to say in my behalf- do any other useful thing in the
varsal world."
"And was this selection of studies Rashleigh's choice, or your own, Miss
Vernon?" I asked.
"Um i" said she, as if hesitating to answer my question,-" it's not worth
while lifting my finger about, after all. Why, partly his, and partly mine.
As I learned out of doors to ride a horse, and bridle and saddle him in case
of necessity, and to clear a five-barred gate, and fire a gun without winking,
and all other of those masculine accomplishments that my brute cousins
run mad after, I wanted, like my rational cousin, to read Greek.and Latin
within doors, and make my complete approach to the tree of knowledge,
which you men-scholars would engross to yourselves, in revenge, I suppose,
for our common mother's share in the great original transgression."
"And Rashleigh indulged your propensity to learning?"
"Why, he wished to have me for his scholar, and he could but teach me,
that which he knew himself — he was not likely to instruct me in the mysteries of washing lace-ruffles, or hemming- cambric-handkerchiefs, I suppose."
" I admit the temptation of getting such a scholar, and have no doubt
that it made a weighty consideration on the tutor's part."