"How is my mother? Didn't I hear some strains of Mozart's 'Twelfth' as I came into the gate?"
"Yes, I was just playing the Agnus Dei. Mother is nicely; and I was enjoying my music immensely; for it is the first day in two or three weeks that I have been allowed to touch the piano."
Why?"
"Because mother has been so sick. Don't look so frightened; she is quite well now. Did you know you had a little sister up-stairs?"
"No, indeed!" he exclaimed, with an expression of delight, at which Isabel laughed again, while she went on to say:
"Mother was so nervous, and so excited by the storms and shipwrecks that the papers were full of, that for nights and nights she did not sleep at all, and the doctor was afraid she would die or lose her reason; but for some time past she has slept, and now she seems quite recovered."
"Let us go to her—can I go up?"
Just then a little girl of six years came into the room, with wide expectant eyes, and, "Mother says—"
"Ah! little one," said the young man caressingly, "do you remember brother George?"
"Yes, indeed I do."