She met his diffidence with a smile so warm, so enchanting in its sweet, maternal raillery and indulgence that his heart melted within him. And then, as he fumbled with the key, she took from her hand-bag a book and a small glass bottle, and gave them to him.
"What——?" he marvelled.
"Don't you know?" she wondered at him. "'Where was you done raised, man?' Don't you know there is no luck in the house unless the first things carried into it are the Bible and the salt?"
He did not know, but he found the superstition of a singular charm.
"Give me the salt, then, and you take the other," he divided the ceremony.
"No," she denied quietly. "You should carry the Book, because you will make the laws. I will take the salt, because I shall keep the hearth."
So they went in, he oddly sobered by the dignity she laid upon him.
There were only two rooms on the ground floor. The one into which they stepped was large and square, with a floor of brick faded to a mellow Tuscan red, and walls of soft brown plaster. A brick fireplace was built against the north side; the furnishings comprehended two arm-chairs, a round Sheraton table and china closet, a tall wooden clock, and four rag rugs in red and white. In one corner, modestly retired, a plain deal table supported an oil cook-stove, with an air of decent humility and shrinking from observation. The open door beyond revealed a bed-chamber, also rag-rugged, furnished with a noble meagreness, but displaying a four-posted bed of carved and time-darkened ash. Elsie took a long, full look, then regarded her husband with widening eyes.
"Anthony, where did you buy them? And what did you pay for them?"
No one within his memory had ever called Adriance by his unabbreviated name. It came to him as part of this new life where he was full-grown man and master. And he welcomed the frank comradeship with which she used it, without a sentimental affectation of shyness.