It was this song that sent him the next afternoon to see his Lady of the Roses. He found her this time out of doors in her garden. Unceremoniously, as usual, he rushed headlong into her presence.
"Oh, Lady—Lady of the Roses," he panted. "I've found out, and I came quickly to tell you."
"Why, David, what—what do you mean?" Miss Holbrook looked unmistakably startled.
"About the hours, you know,—the unclouded ones," explained David eagerly. "You know you said they were ALL cloudy to you."
Miss Holbrook's face grew very white.
"You mean—you've found out WHY my hours are—are all cloudy ones?" she stammered.
"No, oh, no. I can't imagine why they are," returned David, with an emphatic shake of his head. "It's just that I've found a way to make all my hours sunny ones, and you can do it, too. So I came to tell you. You know you said yours were all cloudy."
"Oh," ejaculated Miss Holbrook, falling back into her old listless attitude. Then, with some asperity: "Dear me, David! Did n't I tell you not to be remembering that all the time?"
"Yes, I know, but I've LEARNED something," urged the boy; "something that you ought to know. You see, I did think, once, that because you had all these beautiful things around you, the hours ought to be all sunny ones. But now I know it isn't what's around you; it's what is IN you!"
"Oh, David, David, you curious boy!"