"I don't know o' that. I never seen it," the boy returned. "Is it
death?"

"No; it is life. But you would n't understand if I could explain it,
which I cannot. No one understands it. But it is there just the same.
You have it, but you do not know how to use it yet. You never will
unless you do something besides lie beneath the trees and dream. Why
can't you do something?"

"Oh, I'm tired with all the things I 'm not doin'!" said Larry, in his
petulant, whimsical way.

For a little the voice was silent, and Larry was beginning to fear it
had fled and deserted him like all the rest; when it spoke again, in
its low-toned murmur, like the breath of a breeze, and said,--

"It is cruel to make a good wish and then leave it to wander about the
world weak and struggling; always trying to be fulfilled and never
succeeding because it is not given strength enough. It makes a
nameless want in the world, and people's hearts ache for it and long to
be satisfied. They somehow feel there is somewhere a blessing that
might be blesseder, a beauty that should be more beautiful. It is then
that the little unfledged wish is near, and they feel its longing to be
made complete,--to be given wings and power to rise to heaven. Yes;
one ought not to make a good wish and let it go,--not to perish (for
nothing is lost in this world), but to be unfulfilled forever. One
ought to strengthen it day by day until it changes from a wish to an
endeavor, and then day by day from an endeavor to an achievement, and
then the world is better for it and glad of it, and its record goes