Simeon advanced into the room, his heavy boots clapping the floor with a dull clatter as of wood, dispelling the solemn stillness. His grinning old face, blue with the cold, was sunk in the collar of his great-coat. He rubbed his hands together as he approached the fire. “Well, how are ye all?” he remarked, with a chuckle, as if there were a joke in the speech. Nobody replied. Simeon pulled a chair up close to the fire and sat down. “It’s tarnal cold,” said he, leaning over and spreading out his old hands to the blaze. “The brands are all ready for the burning,” said his sister-in-law, in a hollow, trembling voice. She drew a long thread through the white stuff on her knee. Simeon turned suddenly and looked at her with a flash of small bright eyes. Then he laughed. “Lord bless ye, Sophy Anne, I forgot how tarnal hot you folks are calculatin’ to have it day after to-morrow,” said he. “Well, if you fail in your calculations, an’ the cold continues, I shall be mighty glad to come in here. My house is darned cold this weather, and Abby Mosely ain’t particular ’bout the doors; seems to me sometimes as if I was settin’ in a hurricane the heft of the time, and as if my idees were gettin’ on a slant. Abby thinks she’s goin’ up Thursday, and I wish in thunder she would. I wouldn’t have her another day, if she wa’n’t a lone woman and nowheres to go. She ain’t no kind of a cook. Look at here, Sophy Anne--” Mrs. Lennox sewed on with compressed lips. “Sophy Anne, look at here. You ’ain’t got no mince-pies on hand now, have you?” “No, I ’ain’t.” “Well, I didn’t much s’pose you’d made any, you’ve been so busy gettin’ ready to fly lately. Look at here, Sophy Anne, don’t you feel as if you could roll me out a few mince-pies to-morrow, hey?” Mrs. Lennox looked at him. “I dun’no’ when I’ve eat a decent mince-pie,” pursued Simeon. “Abby Mosely keeps the commandments, but she can’t make pies that’s fit to eat. I ’ain’t had a mince-pie I could eat since my last wife died. I wish you’d contrive an’ roll me out a few, Sophy Anne. Your mince-pies used to go ahead of Maria’s; she always said they did. If the world don’t come to an end day after to-morrow, I’d take a sight of comfort with ’em, and I’ll be darned, if it does come to an end, if I don’t think I’d have a chance to eat one or two of ’em before the fire got round to me. Can’t ye do it, Sophy Anne, nohow?” “No, I can’t.” “Can’t ye roll me out just half a dozen mince-pies?” “I will never roll out a mince-pie for you, Simeon Lennox,” said Sophia Anne, with icy fervor. “Ye never will?” “No, I never will.” Sophia Anne’s stern eyes in their hollow blue orbits met his. Simeon chuckled; then he turned to his brother. “Well, Sol’mon, s’pose you’re flappin’ all ready to fly?” he said.