id could only snatch a strain or two very, very
softly, while he was dressing; but that was enough to show him what a
beautiful song it was going to be. He knew what it was, at once, too.
It was the gold-pieces, and what they would bring. All through the day
it tripped through his consciousness, and danced tantalizingly just out
of reach. Yet he was wonderfully happy, and the day seemed short in
spite of the heat and the weariness.

At four o'clock he hurried home and put his violin quickly in tune. It
came then--that dancing sprite of tantalization--and joyously abandoned
itself to the strings of the violin, so that David knew, of a surety,
what a beautiful song it was.

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!"

"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--thos