‘This is what I have always feared for you, should you publish a book of your own,’ she went on earnestly. ‘You are so sensitive, darling. How thankful I am that Shakespeare (who can afford to smile at it) is bearing the brunt of all this, and not you!’ Then came the ‘rejoinders,’ like sunshine after storm. ‘There was not an ingenuous character or disinterested individual in the whole circle of literature,’ wrote one enthusiastic partisan, ‘to whom the manuscripts had been subjected who was not convinced of their authenticity.’ They had ‘not only convinced the scholar and the antiquary, but the paper-maker.’ As to the secrecy observed with respect to their origin and possessor, ‘what becomes of the acumen of the critic if such details are necessary to establish the genuineness of such a production? His occupation is gone.’ As to the intrinsic merits of the ‘Lear,’ the seal of Shakespeare’s genius was stamped upon it. ‘A wit so pregnant, an imagination so unbounded, a knowledge so intuitive of the weakness of the human heart as was here exhibited could belong to no other man. If it was not his, it was inspiration itself.’ ‘Here, indeed,’ thought William Henry, ‘is something like criticism. This is an independent opinion with which the carping of prejudice or personal malevolence is not to be mentioned in the same breath.’ 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.