And, indeed, if these eulogies had been the products of the best minds in the most perfect state of equilibrium they could scarcely have given him a more exquisite gratification. He had a sensation about his forehead as though a wreath of laurels rested there, or even a halo. He touched the stars with his head, and if he moved upon the earth at all it was on wings. It was delightful to Margaret to see him thus. She hardly recognised in him, exultant and self-conscious, the same young fellow whom she had known depressed and obscure. She was proud beyond measure of the position he had made for himself in the world of letters, but happier still because it seemed to make him hers, to put her uncle’s consent to their union beyond all question. Yet, as love’s fashion is, she still pictured to herself at times delays, opposition, and even obstacles.
‘We must not be too sure, my darling,’ she said to him lovingly one day, ‘though all things seem to smile on us. It is but the promise after all, the bud but not the flower, the blossom but not the fruit’.
‘True,’ he answered thoughtfully; ‘all this is but a mock engagement; the battle has yet to come. It is something, however, that the fighting will be on the same field; one at least knows the ground.’
She stared at him, in doubt as to what he meant; then, as if alarmed by her wondering looks, he stammered out, ‘I was thinking of Mr. Erin; we now know him thoroughly, or rather he has become another man from what he was.’
‘My uncle has changed, no doubt, and for the better,’ she said.
‘There is change everywhere and for the better,’ he answered, smiling.
He took from his pocket one of the printed cards which were now formally issued to purchasers of the lately published volume for leave to examine the manuscripts.
SHAKESPEARE.
Admit Albany Wallis, a subscriber, to view the papers.
‘Think of Mr. Wallis having bought the book! Malone and he have quarrelled about it, it seems.’
‘Not about the book,’ put in Margaret quietly; ‘I am afraid he is not even yet a true believer, but I like him better for having bought the book than even if he were. He felt he had behaved badly to us when he came here with that wretched Mr. Talbot, and his purchase of it was by way of making some amends. Where he differed from Mr. Malone was about the John Hemynge deed you brought from the Temple; Mr. Malone has had the malevolence to stigmatise even that as a forgery; but, as Mr. Wallis points out, since you were away from Norfolk Street only three-quarters of an hour, such a fraud was impossible and out of the question. He is a just man with a mind open to conviction, and he has had the courage to confess himself in the wrong.’