But I guess her sister and Mr. Dick could have starved to death just then without her noticing. She was all excitement, for all she's mostly so cool.
"I have a note here for my sister," she said, getting it out of her pocket. "I know we all impose on you, Minnie, but—will you take it for me? I'd go, but I'm in slippers, and, anyhow, I'd need a lantern, and that would be reckless, wouldn't it?"
"In slippers!" Mr. Pierce interrupted. "It's only five degrees above zero! Of all the foolhardy—!"
Miss Patty did not seem to hear him. She gave the letter to me and followed me out on the step.
"You're a saint, Minnie," she said, leaning over and squeezing my arm, "and because you're going back and forth in the cold so much, I want you to have this—to keep."
She stooped and picked up from the snow beside the steps something soft and furry and threw it around my neck, and the next instant I knew she was giving me her chinchilla set, muff and all. I was so pleased I cried, and all the way over to the shelter-house I sniveled and danced with joy at the same time. There's nothing like chinchilla to tone down red hair.
Well, I took the note out to the shelter-house, and rapped. Mr. Dick let me in, and it struck me he wasn't as cheerful as usual. He reached out and took the muff.
"Oh," he said, "I thought that was the supper."
"It's coming," I said, looking past him for Mrs. Dicky. Usually when I went there she was drawing Mr. Dick's profile on a bit of paper or teaching him how to manicure his nails, but that night she was lying on the cot and she didn't look up.
"Sleeping?" I asked in a whisper.