“The same to you,” echoed Leo, but Paz was already muffled in his furs and running rapidly away.

PHIL’S FAIRIES

CHAPTER I

THE WIND HARP

“Oh, Lisa, how many stars there are to-night! and how long it takes to count just a few!” said a weak voice from a little bed in a garret room.

“You will tire yourself, dear, if you try to do that; just shut your eyes up tight, and try to sleep.”

“Will you put my harp in the window? there may be a breeze after a while, and I want to know very much if there is any music in those strings.”

“Where did you get them, my darling,”

“From Joe.”

“Joe, the fiddler?”

“Yes; he brought me a handful of old catgut; he says he does not play any more at dances; he is so old and lame that they like a younger darkey who knows more fancy figures, and can be livelier.  He is very black, Lisa, and I am almost afraid of him; but he is so kind, and he tells me stories about his young days, and all the gay people he used to see.  Hark! that is my harp; oh, Lisa, is it not heavenly?”

“I don’t know,” said poor, tired Lisa, half asleep, after her long day’s work of standing in a shop.

Phil’s harp was a shallow box, across which he had fastened some violin strings rather loosely; and Phil himself was an invalid boy who had never known what it was to be strong and hardy, able to romp and run, or leap and shout.  He had neither father nor mother, but no one could have loved him more or have been any gentler or more considerate than was Lisa—­poor, plain Lisa—­who worked early and late to pay for Phil’s lodging in the top of the old house where they lived, and whose whole earthly happiness consisted in making Phil happy and comfortable.  It was not always easy to do this, for Phil was a strange child; aside from the pain that he suffered, he had odd fancies and strange likings, the result of his illness and being so much alone.  And Lisa could not always understand him, for she lived among other people—­rough, plain, careless people, for whom she toiled, and who had no such thoughts as Phil had.

From the large closet that served as her bedroom Lisa often heard Phil talking, talking, talking, now to this thing, now to that, as if it were real and had a personality; sometimes his words were addressed to a rose-bush she had brought him, or the pictures of an old volume she had found on a stall of cheap books at a street corner, or the little plaster cast that an image-seller had coaxed her to purchase.  Then, again, he would converse, with his knife and fork or plate, ask them where they came from, how they were made, and of what material.  No answer coming, he would invent all sorts of answers, making them reply in his own words.

Lisa was so used to these imaginary conversations that they did not seem strange to her.