Aleck himself had taken one second on the way to wonder how he was going to manage it, but he stepped in as briskly and as gayly as if they were the oldest friends in the world, and everything had always been going on merrily between them.
“Why, how are you?” he said, giving his hand to Creepy; “we’ve missed you so long from the window, Nelly and I, that we were afraid you weren’t coming any more, and how to find you we didn’t know. And here you are, not five minutes walk from us after all! You see we couldn’t let it go so, after we had once got to expecting you, and so when you stopped coming I returned some of your visits. That’s fair, isn’t it? But you’ve been horridly sick, haven’t you? Shut up here all these pleasant days, and no end of pain, they tell me.”
“Yes,” said Creepy, “but that doesn’t matter much. I was used to pain a long time, and if it comes back now, why it’s only the same thing, you know.”
“Well, if it went off once, it will again, I hope; and the first thing when it’s better, we shall be looking for you. There isn’t much in the conservatory just now of course, but the garden almost goes ahead of it. Did you ever take care of flowers?”
“I never saw one till I saw yours,” said Creepy; and then seeing a look of astonishment, he added, “I never saw anything, until the doctor came.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Aleck, laughing, that Creepy need not see how he really felt, “those eyes of yours look as if they had seen a great deal, and looked through it all pretty well too. But books are the main things, I guess, from what I see about here. Does the doctor let you read yet?”
“Not much; he brought me a book yesterday, but I’m not to read it yet.”
“That looks jolly,” said Aleck, taking up the book and running over the illustrations. “There’s a sail-boat that looks for all the world like mine. Do you like sailing? I’m going out in the harbor this afternoon, and I wish you were well enough to go along. Perhaps you’d like a row-boat better; everybody likes rowing, I believe.”
“All but me,” said Creepy, and then he was glad the doctor was not there to hear; he did not mean to say it, but it slipped out.