"Don't you think she's very like Light?" he asked.
"Yes, indeed!" said Tyltyl. "But she will grow!..."
And the three Children tried to put a little food down the Bird's beak, while the parents began to feel easier in their minds and looked at them and smiled.
Tyltyl was radiant. I will not conceal from you, my dear little readers, that the Dove had hardly changed colour at all and that it was joy and happiness that decked him with a magnificent bright blue plumage in our hero's eyes. No matter! Tyltyl, without knowing it, had discovered Light's great secret, which is _that we draw nearer to happiness by trying to give it to others_.
But now something happened. Everybody became excited, the Children screamed, the parents threw up their arms and rushed to the open door: the Bird had suddenly escaped! He was flying away as fast as he could.
"My bird! My bird!" sobbed the little girl.
But Tyltyl was the first to run to the staircase and he returned in triumph:
"It's all right!" he said. "Don't cry! He is still in the house and we shall find him again."
And he gave a kiss to the little girl, who was already smiling through her tears:
"You'll be sure to catch him again, won't you?" she asked.
"Trust me," replied our friend, confidentially. "I now know where he is."
You also, my dear little readers, now know where the Blue Bird is. Dear Light revealed nothing to the woodcutter's Children, but she showed them the road to happiness by teaching them to be good and kind and generous.
Suppose that, at the beginning of this story, she had said to them:
"Go straight back home. The Blue Bird is there, in the humble cottage, in the wicker cage, with your dear father and mother who love you."
The Children would never have believed her:
"What!" Tyltyl would have answered. "The Blue Bird, my dove? Nonsense: my dove is grey!... Happiness, in the cottage? With Daddy and Mummy? Oh, I say! There are no toys at home and it's awfully boring there: we want to go ever so far and meet with tremendous adventures and have all sorts of fun...."
That is what he would have said; and he and Mytyl would have set out in spite of everything, without listening to Light's advice, for the most certain truths are good for nothing if we do not put them to the test ourselves. It only takes a moment to tell a child all the wisdom in the world, but our whole lives are not long enough to help us understand it, because our own experience is our only light.