Exertion, like virtue, is its own reward; and our hero had, moreover, other stimulating motives for persevering in a display of affected composure and indifference to Flora’s obvious unkindness.  Pride, which supplies its caustic as a useful, though severe, remedy for the wounds of affection, came rapidly to his aid.  Distinguished by the favour of a Prince; destined, he had room to hope, to play a conspicuous part in the revolution which awaited a mighty kingdom; excelling, probably, in mental acquirements, and equalling, at least, in personal accomplishments, most of the noble and distinguished persons with whom he was now ranked; young, wealthy, and high-born—­could he, or ought he to droop beneath the frown of a capricious beauty?

     O nymph, unrelenting and cold as thou art,
     My bosom is proud as thine own.

With the feeling expressed in these beautiful lines (which, however, were not then written) [They occur in Miss Seward’s fine verses, beginning—­To thy rocks, stormy Lannow, adieu.], Waverley determined upon convincing Flora that he was not to be depressed by a rejection, in which his vanity whispered that perhaps she did her own prospects as much injustice as his.  And, to aid this change of feeling, there lurked the secret and unacknowledged hope, that she might learn to prize his affection more highly when she did not conceive it to be altogether within her own choice to attract or repulse it.  There was a mystic tone of encouragement, also, in the Chevalier’s words, though he feared they only referred to the wishes of Fergus in favour of a union between him and his sister.  But the whole circumstances of time, place, and incident, combined at once to awaken his imagination, and to call upon him for a manly and decisive tone of conduct, leaving to fate to dispose of the issue.  Should he appear to be the only one sad and disheartened on the eve of battle, how greedily would the tale be commented upon by the slander which had been already but too busy with his fame?  Never, never, he internally resolved, shall my unprovoked enemies possess such an advantage over my reputation.

Under the influence of these mixed sensations, and cheered at times by a smile of intelligence and approbation from the Prince as he passed the group, Waverley exerted his powers of fancy, animation, and eloquence, and attracted the general admiration of the company.  The conversation gradually assumed the tone best qualified for the display of his talents and acquisitions.  The gaiety of the evening was exalted in character, rather than checked, by the approaching dangers of the morrow.  All nerves were strung for the future, and prepared to enjoy the present.  This mood of mind is highly favourable for the exercise of the powers of imagination, for poetry, and for that eloquence which is allied to poetry.  Waverley, as we have elsewhere observed, possessed at times a wonderful flow of rhetoric; and, on the present occasion, he