ther end of the table, reeling off blue yarn from
broaches that had just been drawn off the spindle.

Miss Tabby was squeezed into the chimney corner next her sister,
knitting a gray stocking.

There was a deep silence, broken only by the sighing of the wind through
the leafless trees without, the pattering of the rain against the
windows, the whirr of the spinning-wheel at the foot of the stairs, the
simmering of the green logs that refused to blaze, and the audible
snivelling of Miss Tabby.

The silence grew so oppressive that Miss Tabby, like the child in the
Quaker meeting, felt that she must speak, or sob, or suffocate.

"Hallow Eve again," she sighed, "it have come round once more since
that awful night, which I shall never be rid on seeing it before me--no,
not if I live to be as old as Methusalah! And oh, what gloomy weather!
How the wind do moan and the rain do pour 'round the old house! Just
like heaving sighs and steaming tears! And as for me, I never feel like
nothing but sighs and tears myself whenever this most doleful night
comes round again."

And suiting the action to the word, the speaker drew a deep breath and
wiped her eyes.

"Tabby, you're always a whimpering. When 'tan't about one thing 'tis
about another. Seems to me a woman of your age, turned fifty, ought to
have more sense!" sharply commented old Mrs. Winterose, as she took a
roll of wool from her card and placed it softly on a pile of others that
lay upon the table.

"I can't help of it, mother. I can't, indeed. Whenever this most doleful
night do come round again, I feel that low sperreted I don't know what
to do. And it is just such a night as that night was. Everything so
miserable, outside and in. The wind moaning and the rain drizzling out
there, and in here the fire not burning, but just smouldering and
smoking as if it was low-sperreted too!" sighed Miss Tabby.

"I'll soon raise the fire's sperrits," said the old lady, briskly rising
and seizing the poker, and giving the logs a good lunge and lift, that
sent up a shower of sparks and a sheet of flame, lighting the whole room
with the brightness of day.

The effect was as transient as it was brilliant, however. The sparks
expired in their upward flight, and the flame died down again, leaving
the logs simmering as before.

"There, now, you see how it is, mother. The very fire feels the time,"
sighed Miss Tabby.

"Fiddle! it is only because the wood is green. I'll cure that t