"I wonder why did she throw that away?" said Phil to himself, as he stuffed the papers into his pocket and went on his way. "Maybe they wasn't a good kind. Anyhow, I mean to plant them and see what they turn out. There's the corner back of the cow-shed at the foot of the rock, where the wild flowers come out so early. There's a bit of a fence now, and I could mend it up with poles and things. Enough of those are lying round the place to fence an acre. I don't see why I shouldn't have a garden as well as any of them."
Phil's head was so full of his garden that he came near passing Mrs. Barnard's place without going in, but he recollected himself and hurried in at the gate. As he expected, Mrs. Barnard was at work among her flowers.
"Is that you, Phil?" she asked, pleasantly. "How is your granny?"
Phil answered the question, and then asked for Mr. Regan.
"Regan is in the green-house," was the answer; "you can go in and speak to him if you wish."
This was a pleasure Phil did not expect, though he had often longed to find himself within those curious glass walls. It was with great delight that he breathed the warm, damp, spicy smell of the green-house, filled with geraniums, roses, and all sorts of plants, some of which, Phil thought, must have come straight from Fairy-land.
"I'll step round this evening," said Regan, when Phil had delivered his message. "Did she say what she wanted of me?"
"No, sir, only that she wanted to spake to you. What a beautiful place! Shure, I'd like to be a gardener like yourself, Mr. Regan!"
"It's the sweetest trade and the wholesomest trade in the world, besides being the oldest," said Regan. "Adam was a gardener, you know."
"Adam got into lots of trouble, though," said Phil.