"I cannot say, Mother; you know about that better than I."

"You expect a New Year's gift to-morrow, I presume, Frank."

"Yes, Mother, you always give us a New Year's gift, you know. Will
you let us sit up till the clock strikes twelve to-night?"

Their mother promised that they should, and added, "I have been
thinking of a New Year's gift for you, Frank, that I am not quite
sure you will like. I will tell you what it is, and if you do not
like it, you will say so honestly, I trust."

"What is it, Mother?"

"You know the little room I call my closet. It has a window in it,
and contains some shelves with books on them. I propose to give you
that closet, with all the books I shall leave in it, for your own.
In it are a desk and a chair. From the window, you look directly,
you know, upon the pine grove. In this little room, you may study
and write and read and think also, as much as you please."

Frank could scarcely hear his mother finish, for delight at the
thought. "All my own? the books, the desk, the nice old-fashioned
chair and the closet itself? Why, Mother, I never should have
believed you would have given it to me for my own. There is nothing
I should like so well in the world. Shall I have the Shakespeare,
and the Johnson, and the Classical Dictionary, and the Sir Charles
Grandison, and all the old poets, and those French books in it, and
the Homer and the Virgil too?"