With David’s renewed ability to see the Blue Bird, all the memory of the past returned to him so clearly that it seemed but yesterday that he had entered the little door in the tree trunk. “Why leave the cobbler and his wife and Ruth?” asked the Voice. “I liked it there and found myself very comfortable and well cared for, even if they did work us rather hard at times. I should have liked to remain there all the days of my life.--I don’t care for this business of chasing the Blue Bird,” he added sulkily. “That is because you do not understand,” said David. “Your duty is to obey and do as I tell you, not to grumble and find fault with every little hardship! There is a goal that I am aiming for, and the Blue Bird is leading me there; so I must and will follow it.” The Voice grumbled a bit more, but David paid no attention to it, for his mind was filled with more interesting thoughts. He had rested under a tree as night approached, and the Blue Bird had sought shelter in the thick foliage of the same tree. The Voice had taken this opportunity to speak to him again. David was now in the Forest Beyond the Woodlands, you perceive, for he had stepped into this country when he passed through the little door that led from the other side of the great tree. In this land things happen otherwise than in our land; or, if they do not actually happen otherwise, it _seems_ so to those who live there, for everyone there is able to understand the inside of a thing as well as the outside. If you are able to understand only the outside of a thing, you will, more times than a few, entirely misunderstand the whole thing; but if you can understand the inside, it is not in the least necessary to bother much about the outside, for that will take care of itself. Everything that has an outside has been made for the sake of the inside that it contains; and as everything has two sides, of course, you understand that there must be an _in_side as well as an _out_side. It is a very good thing to be able to see the inside of a thing and to look for it more carefully than you look for the outside; and if you learn really to see it, you will have more than a few surprises in your life, through finding that you are able to see both sides at once.