"No, but really! Let me tell you," pleaded David. "You know I haven't liked them,—all those hours till four o'clock came,—and I was so glad, after I saw the sundial, to find out that they didn't count, anyhow. But to-day they HAVE counted—they've all counted, Lady of the Roses; and it's just because there was something inside of me that shone and shone, and made them all sunny—those hours."
"Dear me! And what was this wonderful thing?"
David smiled, but he shook his head.
"I can't tell you that yet—in words; but I'll play it. You see, I can't always play them twice alike,—those little songs that I find,—but this one I can. It sang so long in my head, before my violin had a chance to tell me what it really was, that I sort of learned it. Now, listen!" And he began to play.
It was, indeed, a beautiful song, and Miss Holbrook said so with promptness and enthusiasm; yet still David frowned.
"Yes, yes," he answered, "but don't you see? That was telling you about something inside of me that made all my hours sunshiny ones. Now, what you want is something inside of you to make yours sunshiny, too. Don't you see?"
An odd look came into Miss Holbrook's eyes.
"That's all very well for you to say, David, but you haven't told me yet, you know, just what it is that's made all this brightness for you."
The boy changed his position, and puckered his forehead into a deeper frown.
"I don't seem to explain so you can understand," he sighed. "It isn't the SPECIAL thing. It's only that it's SOMETHING. And it's thinking about it that does it. Now, mine wouldn't make yours shine, but—still,"—he broke off, a happy relief in his eyes,—"yours could be LIKE mine, in one way. Mine is something that is going to happen to me—something just beautiful; and you could have that, you know,—something that was going to happen to you, to think about."