So, too, does the weight of learning with which Rashleigh Osbaldistone has loaded her. Greek and Latin, history, science and philosophy, “as well as most of the languages of modern Europe,” seem a large order for a girl of eighteen. Diana can also saddle and bridle a horse, clear a five-barred gate, and fire a gun without winking. Yet she has a “tiny foot”--so at least Scott says--and she rides to hounds with her hair bound only by the traditional ribbon, so that her long tresses “stream on the breeze.” The absurd and complicated plot in which she is involved is never disentangled. Dedicated in infancy to the cloister, which was at least unusual, she has been released by Rome from vows she has never taken, only on condition that she marries a cousin who is within the forbidden degree of kindred. Her numerous allusions to this circumstance--“The fatal veil was wrapped round me in my cradle,” “I am by solemn contract the bride of Heaven, betrothed to the convent from the cradle”--distress and mystify poor Frank, who is not clever at best, and who accepts all her verdicts as irrevocable. Every time she bids him farewell, he believes it to be the end; and he loses the last flicker of hope when she sends him a ring by--of all people under Heaven--Helen MacGregor, who delivers it with these cheerful words: “Young man, this comes from one whom you will never see more. If it is a joyless token, it is well fitted to pass through the hands of one to whom joy can never be known. Her last words were ‘Let him forget me forever.’” After which the astute reader is prepared to hear that Frank and Diana were soon happily married, without any consideration for cradle or for cloister, and without the smallest intervention from Rome. Miss Vernon is one of Scott’s characters for whom an original has been found. This in itself is a proof of vitality. Nobody would dream of finding the original of Lucy Bertram, or Isabella Wardour, or Edith Bellenden. As a matter of fact, the same prototype would do for all three, and half-a-dozen more. But Captain Basil Hall expended much time and ingenuity in showing that Scott drew Diana after the likeness of Miss Jane Anne Cranstoun, a young lady of Edinburgh who married an Austrian nobleman, and left Scotland before the first of the Waverley Novels was written. Miss Cranstoun was older than Scott, well born, well looking, a fearless horse-woman, a frank talker, a warm friend, and had some reputation as a wit. It was through her that the young man made his first acquaintance with Bürger’s ballad, “Lenore,” which so powerfully affected his imagination that he sat up all night, translating it into English verse. When it was finished, he repaired to Miss Cranstoun’s house to show her the fruits of his labour. It was then half-past six, an hour which to that vigorous generation seemed seasonable for a morning call. Clarissa Harlowe grants Lovelace his interviews at five.