ording to
Charlotte, was "flat."

The club coteries paused, the literary log-rollers were nonplussed,
and Thackeray sat reading instead of writing.

The interest in the story was intensified, inasmuch as no one knew
whence had come the voice that had stirred all hearts. Nor did the
interest diminish when the mystery was dispelled. On the contrary, it
was much increased when it became known that the author was a little,
shy, bright-eyed Yorkshire maiden, of Irish origin, who could scarcely
reach up to great Thackeray's arm, or reply unmoved to his simplest
remark.

The Irish Brontes read the reviews of their niece's book with intense
delight. To them the paeans of praise were successive whiffs of pure
incense. They had never doubted that they themselves were superior to
their neighbors, and they felt quite sure that their niece Charlotte
was superior to every other writer.

But the Brontes were not content to enjoy silently their niece's
triumph and fame. Their hearts were full, and overflowed from the
lips. They had reached the period of decadence, and were often heard
boasting of the illustrious Charlotte. Sometimes even they would read
to uninterested and unappreciative listeners scraps of praise cut from
the Newry papers, or supplied to them from English sources by Mr.
McKee. The whole heaven of Bronte fame was bright and cloudless;
suddenly the proverbial bolt fell from the blue.

"The Quarterly"[3] onslaught on "Jane Eyre" appeared, and all the good
things that had been said were forgotten. The news travelled fast, and
reached Ballynaskeagh. The neighbors, who cared little for what "The
Times," "Frazer," "Blackwood," and such periodicals said, had got hold
of the "Quarterly" verdict in a very direct and simple form. The
report went round the district like wild-fire that the "Quarterly
Review" had said Charlotte Bronte, the vicar's daughter, was a bad
woman, and an outcast from her kind. The neighbors of the Brontes had
very vague ideas as to what "The Quarterly" might be, but I am afraid
the one bad review gave them more piquant pleasure than all the good
ones put together. In the changed atmosphere the uncles and aunts
assumed their old unsocial and taciturn ways. When their acquaintances
came, with simpering smiles, to sympathize with them, their gossip was
cut short by the Brontes, who judged rightly that the sense of
humiliation pressed lightly on their comforters.

In their sore distress they went to M