Then Susy tried to help her mother out--with an instance, an example, an illustration.

The mother was getting ready to go down-town, and one of her errands was to buy a long-promised toy-watch for Susy.
"If you forgot the watch, mamma, would that be a little thing ?" She was not concerned about the watch, for she knew it would not be forgotten.

What she was hoping for was that the answer would unriddle the riddle, and bring rest and peace to her perplexed little mind.
The hope was disappointed, of course--for the reason that the size of a misfortune is not determinate by an outsider's measurement of it, but only by the measurements applied to it by the person specially affected by it.

The king's lost crown is a vast matter to the king, but of no consequence to the child.

The lost toy is a great matter to the child, but in the king's eyes it is not a thing to break the heart about.