brought down the ribbon, and placed it in Tita's stocking;
she then made up the fire with light-wood, and set about decorating the
walls with wreaths of evergreen as the patter of the little boys' feet
was heard on the old stairway. The breakfast table was noisy that
morning. Tita had inspected her ribbons demurely, and wondered how Santa
Klaus knew her favorite colors so well. Anne glanced toward her father,
and smiled; but the father's face showed doubt, and did not respond.
While they were still at the table the door opened, and a tall figure
entered, muffled in furs. "Miss Lois!" cried the boys. "Hurrah! See our
presents, Miss Lois." They danced round her while she removed her
wrappings, and kept up such a noise that no one could speak. Miss Lois,
viewed without her cloak and hood, was a tall, angular woman, past
middle age, with sharp features, thin brown hair tinged with gray, and
pale blue eyes shielded by spectacles. She kissed Anne first with
evident affection, and afterward the children with business-like
promptitude; then she shook hands with William Douglas. "I wish you a
happy Christmas, doctor," she said.

"Thank you, Lois," said Douglas, holding her hand in his an instant or
two longer than usual.

A faint color rose in Miss Lois's cheeks. When she was young she had one
of those exquisitely delicate complexions which seem to belong to some
parts of New England; even now color would rise unexpectedly in her
cheeks, much to her annoyance: she wondered why wrinkles did not keep it
down. But New England knows her own. The creamy skins of the South, with
their brown shadows under the eyes, the rich colors of the West, even
the calm white complexions that are bred and long retained in cities,
all fade before this faint healthy bloom on old New England's cheeks,
like winter-apples.

Miss Lois inspected the boys' presents with exact attention, and added
some gifts of her own, which filled the room with a more jubilant uproar
than before. Tita, in the mean while, remained quietly seated at the
table, eating her breakfast; she took very small mouthfuls, and never
hurried herself. She said she liked to taste things, and that only
snapping dogs, like the boys, for instance, gulped their food in a mass.

"I gave her the ribbons; do not say anything," whispered Anne, in Miss
Lois's ear, as she saw the spectacled eyes turning toward Tita's corner.
Miss Lois frowned, and put back into her pocket a small parcel she was