'Then it is real goodness that draws them together!' exclaimed Cherry, looking up from her presidency over the comfits.
'Goodness and a balance,' said Edgar.
'Did you know,' said Cherry, 'that as soon as he came of age, he paid the Insurance all the money for the Fortinbras Arms? The agents were quite overwhelmed, and wanted to put it in the Pursuivant.'
She was cut short by the return of Wilmet and Angela, accompanied by Miss Knevett. The effect of Edgar's appearance was startling. Alice gave a little scream of surprise, Angela crept behind her sisters, and Wilmet stood for a moment like a stag at gaze; then, as he said, 'Well, Mettie, are you going to send for the police?' exclaimed, 'You, Edgar! What a figure you have made of yourself!'
'See how our eldest crushes me!' said Edgar. 'Such a face as yours, Mettie, ought not to be wedded to the commonplace.'
'I suppose it is like German artists,' said Wilmet, trying to resign herself.
'It is such a beautiful becoming dress,' whispered Alice to Geraldine; while Edgar rattled on—'No wonder there is a deterioration in taste from living in the very tents of the Philistines. Why, Cherry, how do you bear existence surrounded by such colours as these?'
'The paper?' asked Wilmet, surprised. 'It is rather a large pattern, to be sure.'
'I call it cruelty to animals to shut Cherry up among the eternal abortive efforts of that gilded trellis to close upon those blue dahlias, crimson lilacs, and laburnums growing upwards, tied with huge ragged magenta ribbons. They would wear out my brain.'
'Well, I think when you remember our old paper, you might be thankful!' said Wilmet.