Mr. Leith worked under difficulties, for his business, small as it was,
was much saddled with pecuniary obligations which it but inadequately
supported. His printing of Henry's poems was really a work of sheer
idealism which none but a Scotsman, or perhaps an Irishman, would have
undertaken; and it was a work that might at any moment be interrupted by
bailiffs, empowered to carry away the presses and the very types over
which Henry loved to hang in his spare hours, trying to read in the
lines of mysteriously carved metal, his "Madrigal to Angelica singing,"
or his "Sonnet on first beholding Angelica."
Then Mr. Leith was of a convivial disposition; and Henry and he must
have spent more hours drinking to the success of the little book than
would have sufficed to print it twice over. However, the day did at last
come when it was a living, breathing reality, and when Angel and Henry
sat with tears of joy over the little new-born "Book of Angelica." Was
it not, they told each other, the little spirit-child of their love? How
wonderful it all was! How wonderful their future was going to be!
"What does it feel like?" said Henry, playfully recalling their old
talk, "to have a book written all about one's self?"
"It is to feel the happiest and proudest girl in the world.
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