“For a while, he watched it sink into the deep, clear water,” Diana continued. “Then he sprang up for joy, again fell upon his knees, and thanked Heaven, with tears in his eyes, for its kindness in taking away his only plague, the ugly, heavy stone. ‘How happy am I!’ cried he: ‘no mortal was ever so lucky as I am.’ Then up he got, with a light and merry heart, and walked on, free from all his troubles, till he reached his mother’s house.”

The table was silent for a moment. Lord Bryant let out a puff of air, then glanced at the faces of Tommy and Drue. “Hans is one of the smartest men I have ever heard of.”

“Smart?” Tommy laughed. “He isn’t smart. He worked all of that time for nothing.”

“Well, maybe that wasn’t smart,” Lord Bryant agreed. “But when he dropped his burden in the pond, he became happy for what he could be happy for—that he no longer had a burden. He didn’t mourn the things he couldn’t change.”

“He didn’t drop the stone in,” Diana couldn’t help but add. She could see Lord Bryant’s point, but telling the boys that a man who traded away all of his income of seven years for nothing was smart didn’t sit right with her. “It fell in by accident. He didn’t want to lose his burden. It was only after it had slipped in that he rejoiced it was gone.”

“True.” Lord Bryant put a hand to his chin. “But to choose happiness when the whole world tells you to be unhappy . . . I can’t help but think Hans understands more about life than we give him credit for.”

Diana didn’t know if Lord Bryant was the right person to be lecturing the boys on happiness, but he did have a point. After the stone was gone, there truly wasn’t anything Hans could have done about it.

“One more,” Tommy begged. Diana gave him a sideways glance. “Please,” he added. “‘The Fisherman and His Wife.’”

“I think Drue is too tired,” Diana said. After their wild horse-riding escapade, he had quietly listened to the rest of the story, but she had seen him yawn a few times. “Drue, are you ready for bed?”

Drue shook his head. “One more, please.”

She hated to say no to the boys. Charlotte was still in the adjacent bedroom with Emma, her humming, soft and sweet, coming through the open door. “One more,” she finally agreed, “if it is all right with Lord Bryant.”

His lips curled into a lazy smile and he leaned back in his too-small chair, making him look . . . almost comfortable. “I could listen to stories for hours. Especially when you do the voices.”

Only a few minutes earlier, Lord Bryant’s compliment would have left her face burning, but after galloping about the room with him, there wasn’t much more she could be embarrassed about. She took it as a true compliment and smiled her thanks in his direction. Diana flipped ahead to “The Fisherman and His Wife” and began reading. Lord Bryant was somehow different tonight. She had always pictured him spending his evenings with his arms draped around other women while they danced. Or perhaps at card tables, working on strategy with a female partner. Surely none of those ladies had read stories to him. But did he look at them the way he had just looked at Diana—with a smile and a wish to continue on for hours?