“If you have,” Simeon went on, “I wish you’d give me a piece. I ’ain’t had no mince-pie fit to eat I dun’no’ when. Abby Mosely wa’n’t never much of a cook, and sence she’s took to goin’ to your meetin’ here three times a day, it’s much as ever’s I get anything. It ain’t no more’n fair, Sophy Anne, that you should give me a piece of mince-pie, if you’ve got any.” Mrs. Lennox broke in upon him with a cry which was almost a shriek. “I shall make no more pies in this world, Simeon Lennox. Woe be unto you! Woe be unto you if you think of such things in the face of death and eternal condemnation!” Solomon Lennox had followed the departing people into the yard. His exhorting voice could still be heard out there, for the doors were open. Simeon looked around and shivered. “If you ’ain’t got no mince-pie, I wish you’d shet that door, Sophy Anne,” he said. Sophia Anne Lennox stood looking at him for a minute. He chuckled in her face. She snatched a candle from the shelf and went out of the room with an air of desperation. Melissa rose up and crept after her, her face like a drooping white flower, gliding so closely in her mother’s wake that she seemed to have no individual motion of her own. Simeon looked hard at her as she went. “Sophy Anne is wiry,” he said, when his brother came in. “She’ll go it all right if the wires don’t snap, an’ I reckon they won’t; but you’d better look out for Melissy. She can’t stan’ such tearin’ work as this very long. She’ll have a fever or somethin’.” “What matters that?” cried Solomon. “What matters any tribulation of the flesh when the end of all flesh is at hand?” His voice was hoarse with his long clamor. He leaned over and shook a nervous fist impressively before his brother’s face. Simeon chewed on, and looked at the fist without winking. “You don’t mean to say, Solomon Lennox,” said he at length, “that you believe all this darned tomfoolery?” His brother looked at him with solemn wrath. “Do I believe revelation and the prophets?” he cried. “Woe be unto all scoffers, even though they be my own flesh and blood!” “Now, Solomon, I’ll jest stump ye to point out any passage in the Scripturs that says, up an’ down, square an’ fair, that the world’s comin’ to an end next Thursday. I’ll jest stump ye to do it.” “There are passages that point to the truth, and I have repeated them to-night,” replied Solomon, hotly.