"It's lovely here, and I'm wondering how I can be happy when I know that I am going to leave it soon and go to the city for a long winter away from my home. But there's a voice calling to me from the great outside world and I won't be satisfied until I go and mingle with the multitude of a great city. It is life, life, that I want to see and know. And yet, I'm glad I'll have this to come back to! It gives me a comfortable feeling to know that this is waiting for me, no matter where I go--this is still my home. Sometimes I wonder if Aunt Maria could possibly be speaking wisely when she says it is all a waste of money to run off to the city and study music. But what is there on the farm to attract me? I don't want to marry yet"--the remembrance of Phares Eby's pleading came to her--"and if I do marry some time, it won't be Phares. No, never Phares! Ach, Phœbe Metz, you don't know what you want!" she said to herself as she jumped from the fence and ran down the road to the Eby farm. At the gate she paused. Mother Bab stood among her flowers, her white-capped head bare of any other covering, the hot sunshine streaming upon her. "Mother Bab," she cried, "you are simply baking in the sun!" "No," the woman turned to Phœbe and smiled. "I'm forgetting it's hot while I look at the flowers. You see, Phœbe, I was in the house sewing and trying to keep cool and all of a sudden my eyes grew dim so I couldn't sew. The fear came to me, the fear that my sight is going, though I try not to strain them at all and never sew at night. Well, I just ran out here and began to look and look at my flowers--if I ever do go blind I'm going to have lots of memories of lovely things I've seen." Phœbe drew Mother Bab's face to her and kissed it. "You just mustn't get blind! It would be too dreadful. There are many clever specialists in the city these days. Surely, there is some doctor who can help you." "They all say there is little to be done in a case like mine. But, let's forget it; I can see and we'll keep on hoping it will last. I went to a doctor at Lancaster some time ago and I'm going to give him a fair trial. I guess it'll come out right." Phœbe brightened again at the woman's words of contagious cheer and hope. "Isn't the garden pretty?" asked Mother Bab as they looked about it. "Perfect! Those zinnias are lovely." "Yes, I like them. But I like their other name better--Youth and Old Age, my mother used to call them. She used to say that they are not like other flowers, more like people, for the buds open into tiny flowers and those tiny flowers grow and develop until they are large and perfect. I would think something fine were missing in my garden if I didn't have my Youth and Old Age every year. But you will be too hot in this sun; shall we go in?"