"No, dear; just nothing at all. I was thinking of old times, that's all. An old woman will have her thoughts."
"You are sure it isn't anything else? Have your pains come on again? Shall I go to the doctor for some medicine?"
"Well, you might just take the bottle down if you like. It's well to have it on hand; and as you go step into Mrs. Barnard's, and tell Mr. Regan I'd like to speak to him if he can spare the time to come round."
Phil made haste to finish his breakfast. He washed up the dishes, put the house to rights, and set within reach of granny's chair everything she was likely to want, that she might be spared the pain of moving. Then he washed his own face and hands, and "made himself decent" to go to the town.
He liked any business which took him down to Rockside, and he still better liked calling at Mrs. Barnard's. He was sure to meet the lady herself in her flower garden, and to have a kind word from her. He liked to walk down through the grounds, and peep through the windows of the green-house to see the strange and lovely flowers that grew there. All this was very pleasant.
Phil did not think of being envious or unhappy because none of these fine things belonged to him. It seemed to him quite natural that some people should have fine houses and gardens, and others should live in tumble-down houses, as at Irishtown, and have no gardens at all. He did his errand at the doctor's first, to make sure of finding him at home.
"Do you think granny will ever be well, sir?" he asked, when he had told the doctor just how granny was, and received directions to get the same medicine as before.
"Why, no, not well exactly," said the doctor, kindly. "You see granny is an old woman, and we can't make a mill to grind old people young again. But I presume that as the warm weather comes on, she will be much better, and be able to get about the house and out of doors once more."
Cheered by these words, Phil turned toward home. As he drew near a pretty little cottage on the street where the doctor lived, he saw a young lady come to the gate and empty a quantity of little folded papers from the pocket of her linen gardening apron into the road.
As she went back into the house, Phil stopped and picked up some of the papers to see what they were. They turned out to be little bags which had once held flower seeds. The young lady had planted most of the seeds, but as Phil felt the papers, he found that almost every one had three or four seeds left in it, and one, marked on the outside "Viola tricolor," was quite full, though it had been opened like the others.