“Perhaps I’d better close the door,” he said.  “The light may be seen—­”

“You needn’t close it until I’ve finished talking,” I said.  “I’ve done my best for you and yours, Mr. Dick.  I hope you appreciate it.  Night after night I’ve tramped out here through the snow, and lost sleep, and lied myself black in the face—­you’ve no idea how I’ve had to lie, Mr. Dick.”

“Come in and shut the door, Dick,” Mrs. Dick called, “I’m freezing.”

That made me mad.

“Exactly,” I said, glaring at her through the doorway.  “Exactly—­I can wade through the snow, bringing you meals that you scorn—­oh, yes, you scorn them.  What did you do to the basket tonight?  Look at it, lying there, neglected in a corner, with p—­perfectly good ham and stewed fruit in it.”

All of a sudden I felt terrible about the way they had treated the basket, and I sat down on the steps and began to cry.  I remember that, and Mr. Dick sitting down beside me and putting his arm around me and calling me “good old Minnie,” and for heaven’s sake not to cry so loud.  But I was past caring.  I had a sort of recollection of his getting me to stand up, and our walking through about twenty-one miles of snow to the spring-house.  When we got there he stood off in the twilight and looked at me.

“I’m sorry, Minnie,” he said, “I never dreamed it would do that.”

“Do what?”

“Nothing.  You’re sure you won’t forget?”

“I never forget,” I said.  I had got up the steps by this time and was trying to figure why the spring-house door had two knobs.

I hadn’t any idea what he meant.

“Remember,” he said, very slowly, “Thoburn is going to have his party to-night instead of to-morrow.  Tell Pierce that.  To-night, not to-morrow.”  I was pretty well ashamed when I got in the spring-house and sat down in the dark.  I kept saying over and over to myself, so I’d not forget, “tonight, not to-morrow,” but I couldn’t remember what was to be to-night.  I was sleepy, too, and my legs were cold and numb.  I remember going into the pantry for a steamer rug, and sitting down there for a minute, with the rug around my knees before I started to the house.  And that is all I do remember.

I was wakened by a terrible hammering in the top of my head.  I reached out for the glass of water that I always put beside my bed at night and I touched a door-knob instead.  Then I realized that the knocking wasn’t all in my head.  There was a sort of steady movement of feet on the other side of the door, with people talking and laughing.  And above it all rose the steady knock—­knock of somebody beating on tin.

“Can’t do it.”  It was the bishop’s voice.  “I am convinced that nothing but dynamite will open this tin of lobster.”

“Just a moment, Bishop,” Mr. Thoburn’s voice and the clink of bottles, “I have a can opener somewhere.  You’ll find the sauce a la Newburg—­”