“I’m not sure I can tell you; only you can beat all the boys I know at this sort of work,” said Graham.  “Where did you learn how to do it?”

“Oh, I have not learned yet; I am only just beginning.”

“Haven’t you had any lessons?”

“No; it comes naturally to me to draw.  I wish I could do it better, that’s all,” said Phil, with a little sigh.

“I wouldn’t want to do any better than that,” said Graham.

“Oh yes, you would,” replied Phil, very much pleased, however, with such heartfelt admiration of his drawing.

Just then Nep made another leap upon Graham, and the two, after a friendly tussle, had a race down to the lake, where Graham tossed a stick, and sent the dog after it.

“That is something I cannot do,” said Phil, as the boy came up to him again; “and yet you do it as easily as I draw.”

“What—­shy that stick off on the water?  Then you don’t play ball?”

“I don’t even walk,” said Phil.

Graham seemed both astonished and sorry, so he turned it off with, “But you are going to, you know, when you get well—­and you can do more than any of us now.  Let’s go out on the water.  May we?” he asked, turning to Lisa.

“Oh yes,” said Lisa; and Joe was glad to get the Flyaway ready for a start.

Phil was placed in the stern, where Graham promised to show him how to steer.  Phil was an apt scholar, and delighted to be of use.  Joe addressed Graham as “Captain,” and complimented him on the fine feathering of his oar.  The lad was a good oarsman, and made the boat respond to her name.

“Where shall we go, mate?” asked Graham of Phil.

“The Captain must give orders,” was Phil’s reply.

“Have you been down to Point of Rocks?” asked Graham, directing Phil’s eyes to a distant promontory.

“No, I have not been so far yet.”

“There are lots of water-lilies there.”

“Oh, do go there, then!  I want some to copy.”

“All right.  Pull on your starboard oar, Joe; there, that will do.  Now we will soon reach it.”

It was a lovely little nook where grew the lilies, after they had turned around the jutting stones which gave a name to the spot, and Phil soon had his hands full of fragrant buds.  The water was so clear that he could see their long green stems away down to the black mud from which they sprang.  They moored the boat, and Graham got out to ramble, returning with ferns and mosses and wild-flowers for Phil.

“Now,” said he, “if you don’t mind, I’m going to have a swim just around the rocks here where the water is deeper and not so full of weeds.  I wish you could come.”

“So do I,” said Phil, watching with admiration every movement of his lively companion.  Besides admiration, too, there was a twinge of envy, which he really did not know to be that hateful fault; but it passed in a moment, and he laughed loudly to see Graham’s antics in the water.