He was just as well aware as his reviewers, or as Lady Louisa Stuart, that the conclusion of "Rob Roy" is "huddled up," that the sudden demise of all the young Baldistones is a high-handed measure.

He knew that, in real life, Frank and Di Vernon would never have met again after that farewell on the moonlit road.

But he yielded to Miss Buskbody's demand for "a glimpse of sunshine in the last chapter;" he understood the human liking for the final lump of sugar.

After all, fiction is not, any more than any other art, a mere imitation of life: it is an arrangement, a selection.

Scott was too kind, too humane, to disappoint us, the crowd of human beings who find much of our happiness in dreams.