Gratefully and joyfully she accepted Mr. Manning’s verdict, and turned her undivided attention upon her new manuscript.

While the critics snarled, the mass of readers warmly approved; and many who did not fully appreciate all her arguments and illustrations, were at least clear-eyed enough to perceive that it was their misfortune, not her fault.

Gradually the book took firm hold on the affections of the people; and a few editors came boldly to the rescue, and ably championed it.

During these days of trial, Edna could not avoid observing one humiliating fact, that saddened without embittering her nature.  She found that instead of sympathizing with her, she received no mercy from authors, who, as a class, out-Heroded Herod in their denunciations, and left her little room to doubt that—­

“Envy’s a sharper spur than pay, And unprovoked ’twill court the fray; No author ever spared a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one another.”

CHAPTER XXX.

“Miss Earl, you promised that as soon as I finished the ‘Antiquary’ you would read me a description of the spot which Sir Walter Scott selected for the scene of his story.  We have read the last chapter; now please remember your promise.”

“Felix, in your hunger for books you remind me of the accounts given of cormorants.  The ‘Antiquary’ ought to satisfy you for the present, and furnish food for thought that would last at least till to-morrow; still, if you exact an immediate fulfillment of my promise, I am quite ready to comply.”

Edna took from her workbasket a new and handsomely illustrated volume, and read Bertram’s graphic description of Auchmithie and the coast of Forfarshire.

Finding that her pupils were deeply interested in the “Fisher Folk,” she read on and on; and when she began the pathetic story of the widow at Prestonpans, Hattie’s eyes widened with wonder, and Felix’s were dim with tears: 

“We kent then that we micht look across the sea; but ower the waters would never blink the een that made sunshine around our hearths; ower the waters would never come the voices that were mair delightfu’ than the music o’ the simmer winds, when the leaves gang dancing till they sang.  My story, sir, is dune.  I hae nae mair tae tell.  Sufficient and suffice it till say, that there was great grief at the Pans—­Rachel weeping for her weans, and wouldna be comforted.  The windows were darkened, and the air was heavy wi’ sighin’ and sabbin’.”

The governess closed the book, laid it back in her basket, and raising the lid of the piano, she sang that sad, wailing lyric of Kingsley’s, “The Three Fishers.”