And what was the fact? Why, that this tower, which seemed a mere mass
of masonry, utterly forsaken and uninhabited, was not so at all. Within
twenty feet of the top some ingenious architect had planned a perfect
little house, divided into four rooms--as by drawing a cross within a
circle you will see might easily be done. By making skylights, and a
few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof which was
hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete, eighty feet from
the ground, and as inaccessible as a rook's nest on the top of a tree.

A charming place to live in! if you once got up there,--and never wanted
to come down again.

Inside--though nobody could have looked inside except a bird, and hardly
even a bird flew past that lonely tower--inside it was furnished with
all the comfort and elegance imaginable; with lots of books and toys,
and everything that the heart of a child could desire. For its only
inhabitant, except a nurse of course, was a poor solitary child.

One winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there was
seen crossing it a great tall black horse, ridden by a man also big and
equally black, carrying before him on the saddle a woman and a child.
The woman--she had a sad, fierce look, and no wonder, for she was a
criminal under sentence of death, but her sentence had been changed to
almost as severe a punishment. She was to inhabit the lonely tower
with the child, and was allowed to live as long as the child lived--no
longer. This in order that she might take the utmost care of him; for
those who put him there were equally afraid of his dying and of his
living.

Yet he was only a little gentle boy, with a sweet, sleepy smile--he had