and laughter, and came out to me when I was sitting on the lawn to ask
me for a story.

"Very well," I said. "But you must wait for half an hour until I
remember all about it before I begin. It is a long story about things
that happened a long time ago."

She waited as patiently as she could for about three minutes, and then
said: "What do you mean by a long time ago?"

I explained, but could see that I had not made her understand, and at
last put it in days, then weeks, then seasons, then years, until she
appeared to grasp the meaning of a year, and then finished by saying a
long time ago in this case meant a hundred years.

Again she was at a loss, but still trying to understand she asked me:
"What is a hundred years?"

"Why, it's a hundred years," I replied. "Can you count to a hundred?"

"I'll try," she said, and began to count and got to nineteen, then
stopped. I prompted her, and she went on to twenty-nine, and so on,
hesitating after each nine, until she reached fifty. "That's enough," I
said, "it's too hard to go the whole way; but now don't you begin to
understand what a hundred years means?"

She looked at me and then away, and her beautiful blue intelligent eyes
told me plainly that she did not, and that she felt baffled and
worried.