Christmas Gifts.
A pleasantly-furnished parlor, looking out upon noble trees and gray shrubbery.
Within, books, pictures, portfolios, and a superb piano.
At the piano a lovely girl of twenty summers, whose face, figure, and fair white hands give token that no care, or sorrow, or labor has ever reached her.
A footfall on the piazza startles her; the bell rings, and is answered.
"George!"
"Isabel!"
And in another moment brother and sister are locked in each other's arms. He put her from him a little, and looked in her face.
"You are more than ever Bella," he said, while two or three times he kissed her fair forehead.