ord--more ethereal." And again the fairy laughed.

"Ether means air," said Phil, quite proudly. "Do you know any fairy
stories?" he asked.

"Yes; shall I tell you one next time I come?"

"Oh do, please. So you _will_ come again."

"Yes, if I can. Now I must go. I thought I heard distant thunder. We
must fly so fast--so fast! Good-bye--good-bye."

There was a long rumbling of thunder far off in the distance, and a
cooler air in the hot, close room. Phil lay and dreamed, wondering how
long it took the wind fairies to reach their home. Then the sweet, spicy
odors came to him again, and he lifted the languid flowers Miss Schuyler
had brought him, and put them in his glass of water.

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