I thought I saw the Grey Wolf’s eyes.
The sun was gone away,
Most unendurably gone down,
With all delights of day.
I cried aloud for light, and all
The light was dead and done away,
And no one answered to my call.
Edward was, perhaps, the person best pleased at the news of Elizabeth’s engagement. He had been, as Mary phrased it, “very much put out.” Put out, in fact, to the point of wondering whether he could possibly nerve himself to tell David that he came too often to the house. He had an affection for David, and he was under an obligation to him, but there were limits—during the last fortnight he had very frequently explained to Mary that there were limits. Whether he would ever have got as far as explaining this to David remains amongst the lesser mysteries of life. Mary did not take the explanation in what Edward considered at all a proper spirit. She bridled, looked very pretty, talked about good influences, and was much offended when Edward lost his temper. He lost it to the extent of consigning good influences to a place with which they are not usually connected, though the way to it is said to be paved with good intentions. Mary had a temper, too. It took her out of the room with a bang of the door, but she subsequently cried herself sick because Edward had sworn at her.
There was a reconciliation, but Edward was not as penitent as Mary thought he should have been. David became a sore point with both of them, and Edward, at least, was unfeignedly pleased at what he considered a happy solution of the difficulty. He was fond of Elizabeth, but it would certainly be more agreeable to have the whole house at his own disposal. He had always thought that Elizabeth’s little brown room would be the very place for his collections. He fell to estimating the probable cost of lining the whole wall-space with cabinets.
Mary was not quite as pleased as Edward.