'A lover, my dear Lady Betty,' said Flora, 'may, I conceive, persevere in his suit under very discouraging circumstances. Affection can (now and then) withstand very severe storms of rigour, but not a long polar frost of downright indifference. Don't, even with YOUR attractions, try the experiment upon any lover whose faith you value. Love will subsist on wonderfully little hope, but not altogether without it.' 'It will be just like Duncan Mac-Girdie's mare,' said Evan, 'if your ladyships please; he wanted to use her by degrees to live without meat, and just as he had put her on a straw a day, the poor thing died!' Evan's illustration set the company a-laughing, and the discourse took a different turn. Shortly afterwards the party broke up, and Edward returned home, musing on what Flora had said. 'I will love my Rosalind no more,' said he: 'she has given me a broad enough hint for that; and I will speak to her brother, and resign my suit. But for a Juliet--would it be handsome to interfere with Fergus's pretensions?--though it is impossible they can ever succeed: and should they miscarry, what then?--why then ALORS COMME ALORS.' And with this resolution, of being guided by circumstances, did our hero commit himself to repose. CHAPTER LV A BRAVE MAN IN SORROW If my fair readers should be of opinion that my hero's levity in love is altogether unpardonable, I must remind them that all his griefs and difficulties did not arise from that sentimental source. Even the lyric poet, who complains so feelingly of the pains of love, could not forget, that, at the same time, he was 'in debt and in drink,' which, doubtless, were great aggravations of his distress. There were indeed whole days in which Waverley thought neither of Flora nor Rose Bradwardine, but which were spent in melancholy conjectures on the probable state of matters at Waverley-Honour, and the dubious issue of the civil contest in which he was pledged. Colonel Talbot often engaged him in discussions upon the justice of the cause he had espoused. 'Not,' he said, 'that it is possible for you to quit it at this present moment, for, come what will, you must stand by your rash engagement. But I with you to be aware that the right is not with you; that you are fighting against the real interests of your country; and that you ought, as an Englishman and a patriot, to take the first opportunity to leave this unhappy expedition before the snowball melts.'