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.

128 WAVE1RLEY NOVELS.
As I turned to retrace my steps, it was natural that I should lift up my
eyes to the windows of the old library; which, small in size, but several in
number, stretched along the second story of that side of the house which
now faced me. Light glanced from their casements. I was not surprised
at this, for I knew Miss Vernon often sat there of an evening, though from
motives of delicacy I put a strong restraint upon myself, and never sought
to join her at a time when I knew, all the iest of the family being engaged
for the evening, our interviews must necessarily have been strictly tete-d-tete.
In the mornings we usually read together in the same room; but then it
often happened that one or other of our cousins entered to seek some
parchment duodecimo that could be converted into a fishing-book, despite
its gildings an'd illumination, or to tell us of some' sport toward," or from
mere want of knowing where else to dispose of' themselves. In short, in
the mornings the library was a sort of public room, where man and woman
might meet as on neutral ground. In the evening it was very different;
and, bred in a country where much attention is paid, or was at least then
paid, to bienseance, I was desirous to think for Miss Vernon concerning
those points of propriety where her experience did not afford her the means
of thinking for herself. I made her therefore comprehend, as delicately as
I could, that when we had evening lessons, the presence of a third party
was proper.
Miss Vernon first laughed, then blushed, and was disposed to be displeased; and then, suddenly checking herself, said, "I believe you are very
right; and when I feel inclined to be a very busy scholar, I will bribe old
Martha with a cup of tea to sit by me and be my screen."
Martha., the old housekeeper, partook of the taste of the family at the
Hall. A toast and tankard would have pleased her better than all the tea
in China. However, as the use. of this beverage was then confined to the
higher.ranks, Martha felt some vanity in being asked to partake of it; and
by dint of a great deal of sugar, many words scarce less sweet, and abundance of toast and butter, she was sometimes prevailed upon to give us
her countenance.'On other occasions, the servants almost unanimously
shunned the library after nightfall, because it was their foolish pleasure to
believe that it lay on the haunted side of the house. The more timorous
had seen sights and heard sounds there when all the rest of the house was
quiet; and even the young squires were far from having any wish to enter
these formidable precincts after nightfall without necessity.
That the library had at one time been a favourite resource of Rashleighthat a private door out of one side of it communicated with the sequestered.and remote apartment which he chose for himself, rather increased than
disarmed the terrors which the household had.for the dreaded library of
Osbaldistone-Hall. His extensive information as to what passed in the
world —his profound knowledge, of science of every kind-a few physical
experiments which he occasionally showed off, were, in a house of so much
ignorance and.bigotry, esteemed good reasons. for supposing him endowed
with powers over the spiritual world. He understood Greek, Latin, and
Hebrew; and, therefore, according to the apprehension, and in the phrase
of his brother Wilfred, needed not to care "for ghaist or bar-ghaist, devil
or dobbie." Yea, the servants persisted that they had heard him hold
conversations in the library, when every varsal soul in the' family were
gone to bed; and that he spent the night in watching for bogles, and the
morning in sleeping in his bed, when he should have been heading +
hounds like a true Osbaldistone.
All these absurd rumours I had heard in broken hints and inT
sentences, from which I was left to draw the inference; and, as easie.
supposed, I laughed them to scorn. But the extreme solitude to wI
chamber of evil fame was committed every night after curfew time(