Page:Female Portrait Gallery.pdf/13

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ROSE BRADWARDINE.
89

the fitting bride for the representative of the Waverleys. She would have found her mental superiority very much in the way of domestic felicity. To look up is the natural feminine position. While Rose would have been lost in delighted admiration when her husband showed her a design for a temple to end some newly-cut vista in the woods of Waverley Honour, or read to her his latest translation of a sonnet from "Petrarch," Flora would fain have urged to those more active, if more dangerous pursuits, which gain man place among his fellows. While the one would have exclaimed—

"Shame to the coward thought that ere betray'd,
The noon of manhood to a myrtle shade;"

the other would only have felt the happiness of being at his side. Flora was fit to be compeer and companion to one who allowed her superiority because he knew his own. She would have been "worthy to be the bride of Pericles;" while Rose was just suited to the quiet, unpretending gentleman, who looked to his landed property for his ambition, and to his hearth for his enjoyments. Rose was right in her answer, when Flora spoke of Edward Waverley wandering along his park by moonlight, with his beautiful wife hanging on his arm—"and she will be a very happy woman." The prophecy brought its own fulfilment.