With the feeling expressed in these beautiful lines (which, however, were not then written), [Footnote:  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 an 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 touched more than once the higher notes of feeling, and then again ran off in a wild voluntary of fanciful mirth.  He was supported and excited by kindred spirits, who felt the same impulse of mood and time; and even those of more cold and calculating habits were hurried along by the torrent.  Many ladies declined the dance, which still went forward, and under various pretences joined the party to which the ’handsome young Englishman’ seemed to have attached himself.  He was presented to several of the first rank, and his manners, which for the present were altogether free from the bashful restraint by which, in a moment of less excitation, they were usually clouded, gave universal delight.