"Oh, the story?"
"Yes; and people like them can't be happy and think the world is beautiful, of course."
"Why not?"
"Because they didn't end right. They didn't get married and live happy ever after, you know."
"Well, I don't think I'd worry about that, David,—at least, not about the Princess. I fancy the world was very beautiful to her, all right. The Pauper—well, perhaps he wasn't very happy. But, after all, David, you know happiness is something inside of yourself. Perhaps half of these people are happy, in their way."
"There! and that's another thing," sighed David. "You see, I found that out—that it was inside of yourself—quite a while ago, and I told the Lady of the Roses. But now I—can't make it work myself."
"What's the matter?"
"Well, you see then something was going to happen—something that I liked; and I found that just thinking of it made it so that I didn't mind raking or hoeing, or anything like that; and I told the Lady of the Roses. And I told her that even if it wasn't going to happen she could THINK it was going to, and that that would be just the same, because 't was the thinking that made my hours sunny ones. It wasn't the DOING at all. I said I knew because I hadn't DONE it yet. See?"
"I—think so, David."
"Well, I've found out that it isn't the same at all; for now that I KNOW that this beautiful thing isn't ever going to happen to me, I can think and think all day, and it doesn't do a mite of good. The sun is just as hot, and my back aches just as hard, and the field is just as big and endless as it used to be when I had to call it that those hours didn't count. Now, what is the matter?"