suddenly into his
chair.

"Yes, she did," repeated David, with a little virtuous uplifting of his
chin.

It was plain to be seen that David's sympathies had unaccountably met
with a change of heart.

"But--the Pauper--"

"Oh, yes, and that's another thing," interrupted David. "The Lady of
the Roses said that she didn't like that name one bit; that it wasn't
true, anyway, because he wasn't a pauper. And she said, too, that as
for his picturing the Princess as being perfectly happy in all that
magnificence, he didn't get it right at all. For SHE knew that the
Princess wasn't one bit happy, because she was so lonesome for things
and people she had known when she was just the girl."

Again Mr. Jack sprang to his feet. For a minute he strode up and down
the room in silence; then in a shaking voice he asked:--

"David, you--you aren't making all this up, are you? You're saying just
what--what Miss Holbrook told you to?"

"Why, of course, I'm not making it up," protested the boy aggrievedly.
"This is the Lady of the Roses' story--SHE made it up--only she talked
it as if 't was real, of course, just as you did. She said another
thing, too. She said that she happened to know that the Princess had
got all that magnificence around her in the first place just to see if
it wouldn't make her happy, but that it hadn't, and that now she had
one place--a little room--that was left just as it used to be when she
was the girl, and that she went there and sat very often. And she said
it was right in sight of where the boy lived, too, where he could see
it every day; and that if he hadn't been so blind he could have looked
right through those gray walls and seen that, and seen lots of other
things. And what did she mean by that, Mr. Jack?"

"I don't know--I don't know, David," half-groaned Mr. Jack. "Sometimes
I think she means--and then I think that can't be--true."

"But do you think it's helped it any--the story?" persisted the boy.
"She's only talked a little about the Princess. She didn't really
change things any--not the ending."

"But she said it might, David--she said it might! Don't you remember?"
cried the man eagerly. And to David, his eagerness did not seem at all
strange. Mr. Jack had said before--long ago--that he would be very glad
indeed to have a happier ending to this tale. "Think now," continued
the man. "Perhaps she said something else, too. Did she say anything
else, David?"

David shook his head slowly.