“Dave Johnson can bring up your grips. You can’t manage the four of them in this rain, even if it is only a step.”
They left the bags and Fliss, as they went along together, had a consciousness of wooden sidewalks in indifferent repair, of the stillness of a country village after the train has gone through, of a town gone to bed unreasonably early.
Up a little path which crunched under their feet, on a tiny porch where a rocking chair stood grotesquely upside down so that its seat might be protected from the rain, through a low door. Matthew struck a match and, moving familiarly in the darkness, lit a lamp. They were in the parlor.
Fliss had known poverty and shabbiness. This was different from anything she had ever known. It was the acme of thrift, of cleanliness, of economy and respectability, and pride. The very glow in the Franklin stove, coming through the isinglass, was stiff and correct. The furniture, the prideful Brussels rug with its over-pink central cluster of roses was clean to extremity. The tidies on the chair backs were straight. The Bible, flanked by an imposing parlor table volume, margined the white cover on the center table. The young Mrs. Allenby, standing in the midst of the intensity of order, felt as exotic and out of place as she looked. But her mother-in-law, quickly divested of coat and hat, was on her own ground. She gave Fliss a moment to gain her impression and then led her upstairs to a bedroom which carried out the spirit of the parlor. Fliss looked dubiously at the white crocheted bedspread so perfectly wrinkleless, at the smooth chair tidies and then at Matthew.
“If I should soil something!” she exclaimed in mock terror. “I shall die if I do, Matthew! Where did your mother keep you when you were home? Not in here?”
“No, I slept in the back room. Can you make yourself comfortable?”
“Well, I’m frightened.”
“Little liar! I want you to behave yourself.”
“Behave? I’m a model of decorum. But, oh, for a gingham dress! How long are we going to stay—how long will your mother keep me?”
“A week is about the shortest.”