He dreamed of fair green fields and meadows, of silent lakes bordered with rushes, out of which sprang wild-fowl slowly flapping their broad wings; of forests thick and dark, where on fallen trees the green moss had grown in velvet softness; of mountains lifting their purple tops into the fleecy clouds, and of long, shady country roads winding in and out and about the hills; of lanes bordered with blackberry-bushes and sumac, clematis and wild-rose; of dewy nooks full of ferns; of the songs of birds and the chirp of insects; and it seemed to him that he must put some of all this beauty into some shape of his own creation—­picture or poem, song or speech; and then came a sudden sharp twinge of pain, and the brightness faded, and the room was dark, and he was hungry, and only poor little Phil, sick and sad and weary and poor.

CHAPTER V

LISA VISITS MISS SCHUYLER

“So you are Phil’s good friend Lisa?” said Miss Rachel Schuyler, sitting in her cool white wrapper in the dusk of this warm May evening.  “I want to hear more about Phil.  The dear child has quite won my heart, he looks so like a friend of mine whom I have not seen for many years.  How are you related to him, and who were his parents?”

“I am not related to him at all, Miss Schuyler.”

“No?” in some surprise.  “Why, then, have you the care and charge of him?”

“I was brought up in his mother’s family as seamstress, and went to live with her when she married Mr. Randolph, and—­”

“Who did you say?  What Mr. Randolph?”

“Mr. Peyton Randolph.”

Miss Rachel seemed much overcome, but she controlled herself, and hurriedly said, “Go on.”

“There was no intercourse between the families after the marriage, for Mrs. Randolph was poor, and they all had been opposed to her.  I suppose you do not care to hear all the details—­how they went abroad, and Mr. Randolph died there; and while they were absent their house was burned; and there was no one to take care of Phil but me, for Phil had been too sick to go with his father and mother; and Mrs. Randolph did not live long after her return.  I nursed them both—­Phil and his mother; and when she was gone I came on to the city, thinking I could do better here, but I have found it hard, very hard, with no friends.  Still, I have pretty steady work now as shopwoman, though I cannot do all that I would like to do for Phil.”

Miss Schuyler was crying.

“Lisa, you good woman, how glad I am I have found you!  Phil’s father was the dearest friend I ever had.”

“Phil’s mother gave the child to me, Miss Schuyler.”

“Don’t be alarmed.  I do not wish to separate you.  How can I ever thank you enough for telling me all this?  And what a noble, generous creature you are, to be toiling and suffering for a child no way related to you, and who must have friends fully able to care for him if they would!”