Frank sat down to his task. The expression of the faces of the other three would have required the art of Hogarth himself to depict them. That of Margaret’s was full of sorrow, pain for herself, and distress for Frank, and annoyance upon her uncle’s account. How she regretted having made that stupid objection, though she had done it with a good motive, since she foresaw that it would presently be made by much less friendly critics! Why could she not have been content to let matters take their own course, as Willie always was? On _his_ brow, on the other hand, there sat a complete serenity. From the very first his attitude with respect to his own discoveries had been one of philosophic indifference. Nothing ever roused him from it, not even when the scepticism of others took the most offensive form. He had not, he said, ‘the learning requisite for the defence of “the faith” that was in him,’ and moreover it did not concern him to defend it. He was merely an instrument; the matter in question was in the hands of others. This was of course by no means the view which Mr. Erin took. He had not only the confidence but the zeal of the convert. If he would not himself have gone to the stake in defence of the genuineness of his new-found treasure, he would very cheerfully have sent thither all who disputed it. He was regarding his friend Dennis now, as he plodded through the Profession, with anything but amicable looks, but when he marked his eye pass over that weak point in its armour with which we are acquainted, without stoppage, his brow cleared a little, and he gave a sigh of relief. ‘Well,’ he inquired gently, ‘what say you? Have you found the error, or does it seem to you all straight sailing?’ ‘I had really rather not express an opinion,’ said Dennis quietly. ‘But if you press me, I must needs confess that the whole composition strikes me as rather rhapsodical.’ ‘Does it? Then I on my part must needs confess,’ returned the antiquary with laborious politeness, ‘that I have the misfortune to disagree with you.’ To this observation the young man answered not a word; his face looked very grave and thoughtful, like that of a man who is in a doubt about some important course of conduct, rather than of a mere literary inquiry; nevertheless his words, when they did come, seemed to concern themselves with the latter topic only. ‘I doubt,’ he said, ‘whether the word “accede”’—here he pointed to the phrase ‘after my deathe be acceded to’—‘was in use in Shakespeare’s time.’