The wind was rising. Now and then it came sweeping down the hill, pushing a great sheet of snow, powdered like dust, before it. The window-sashes did not fit tightly, and some of it sifted into the room and climbed into little cones on the floor. Snow-birds drifted past, like soft, dark shadows; and high overhead wild geese went sculling through the yellow air, their mournful “hawnk-e-hawnk-hawnks” sinking downward like human cries. As the old woman stood with her face against the window and her weak eyes strained down the street, a neighbor came to the door. “Has your daughter an’ her fambly come yet, Mis’ Risley?” she asked, entering sociably. “Not yet,” replied Mrs. Risley, with a good attempt at cheerfulness; but her knees suddenly began shaking, and she sat down. “Why, she’d ought to ’a’ come on the last train, hadn’t she?” “Oh, I do’ know. There’s a plenty o’ time. Dinner won’t be ready tell two past.” “She ain’t b’en to see you fer five year, has she?” said the neighbor. “I reckon you’ll have a right scrumptious set-out fer ’em?” “I will so,” said Mrs. Risley, ignoring the other question. “Her husband’s comin’.” “I want to know! Why, he just thinks he’s some punkins, I hear.” “Well, he’s rich enough to think hisself anything he wants to,” Mrs. Risley’s voice took on a tone of pride. “I sh’u’d think you’d want to go an’ live with ’em. It’s offul hard fer you to live here all alone, with your rheumatiz.” Mrs. Risley stooped to lay a stick of wood on the fire. “I’ve worked nigh onto two weeks over this dinner,” she said, “a-seed’n’ raisins an’ cur’nts, an’ things. I’ve hed to skimp harrable, Mis’ Tomlinson, to get it; but it’s just—_perfec’_. Roast goose an’ cranberry sass, an’ cel’ry soup, an’ mince an’ punkin pie,—to say nothin’ o’ plum-puddin’! An’ cookies an’ cur’nt-jell tarts fer the children. I’ll hev to wear my old underclo’s all winter to pay fer ’t; but I don’t care.” “I sh’u’d think your daughter’d keep you more comf’terble, seein’ her husband’s so rich.” There was a silence. Mrs. Risley’s face grew stern. The gold-colored cat came and arched her back for a caress. “My bread riz beautiful,” Mrs. Risley said then. “I worried so over ’t. An’ my fruit-cake smells that good when I open the stun crock! I put a hull cup o’ brandy in it. Well, I guess you’ll hev to excuse me. I’ve got to set the table.” When Mrs. Tomlinson was gone, the strained look came back to the old woman’s eyes. She went on setting the table, but at the sound of a wheel, or a step even, she began to tremble and put her hand behind her ear to listen. “It’s funny they _didn’t_ come on that last train,” she said. “I w’u’dn’t tell her, though. But they’d ort to be here by this time.”