But I didn’t.  I looked at them, all white and soft, and it came over me suddenly how kind people had been lately, and how much I’d been getting—­the old doctor’s waistcoat buttons and Miss Pat’s furs, and now this!  I just buried my face in them and cried.

Doctor Barnes stood by and said nothing.  Some men wouldn’t have understood, but he did.  After a minute or so he came over and pulled the sweater out from the bundle.

“I’m glad you like ’em,” he said, “but as I bought them at Hubbard’s, in Finleyville, and as the old liar guaranteed they wouldn’t shrink, we’d better not cry on ’em.”

Well, I put them on and I was warmer and happier than I had been for some time.  But that night when I went out to the shelter-house with the supper basket I found both the honeymooners in a wild state of excitement.  They said that about five o’clock Thoburn had gone out to the shelter-house and walked all around it.  Finally he had stopped at one of the windows of the other room, had worked at it with his penknife and got it open, and crawled through.  They sat paralyzed with fright, and heard him moving around the other room, and he even tried their door.  But it had been locked.  They hadn’t the slightest idea what he was doing, but after perhaps ten minutes he went away, going out the door this time and taking the key with him.

Mr. Dick had gone in when he was safely gone, but he could see nothing unusual, except that the door of the cupboard in the corner was standing open and there was a brand-new, folding, foot rule in it.

That day the bar was closed for good, and there was a good bit of fussing.  To add to the trouble, that evening at dinner the pastries were cut off, and at eight o’clock a delegation headed by Senator Biggs visited Mr. Pierce in the office and demanded pastry put back on the menu and the stewed fruit taken off.  But Mr. Pierce was firm and they came out pretty well subdued.  It was that night, I think, that candles were put in the bedrooms, and all the electric lights were turned off at nine-thirty.

At ten o’clock I took my candle and went to Mr. Pierce’s sitting-room door.  I didn’t think they’d stand much more and I wanted to tell him so.  Nobody answered and I opened the door.  He was asleep, face down on the hearth-rug in front of the fire.  His candle was lighted on the floor beside him and near it lay a newspaper cutting crumpled in a ball.  I picked it up.  It was a list of the bridal party for Miss Patty’s wedding.

I dropped it where I found it and went out and knocked again loudly.  He wakened after a minute and came to the door with the candle in his hand.

“Oh, it’s you, Minnie.  Come in!”

I went in and put my candle on the table.

“I’ve got to talk to you,” I said.  “I don’t mind admitting things have been going pretty well, but—­they won’t stand for the candles.  You mark my words.”

“If they’ll stand for the bar being closed, why not the candles?” he demanded.