the gray twilight reminded him of the color of her hair and her pretty
soft garments; above all, when, waking in the middle of the night, with
the stars peering in at his window, or the moonlight shining across his
little bed, he would not have been surprised to see her standing beside
it, looking at him with those beautiful tender eyes, which seemed to
have a pleasantness and comfort in them different from anything he had
ever known.

But she never came, and gradually she slipped out of his memory--only
a boy's memory, after all; until something happened which made him
remember her, and want her as he had never wanted anything before.

Prince Dolor fell ill. He caught--his nurse could not tell how--a
complaint common to the people of Nomansland, called the doldrums, as
unpleasant as measles or any other of our complaints; and it made him
restless, cross, and disagreeable. Even when a little better, he was too
weak to enjoy anything, but lay all day long on his sofa, fidgeting his
nurse extremely--while, in her intense terror lest he might die, she
fidgeted him still more. At last, seeing he really was getting well, she
left him to himself--which he was most glad of, in spite of his dullness
and dreariness. There he lay, alone, quite alone.

Now and then an irritable fit came over him, in which he longed to get
up and do something, or to go somewhere--would have liked to imitate his
white kitten--jump down from the tower and run away, taking the chance
of whatever might happen.

Only one thing, alas! was likely to happen; for the kitten, he
remembered, had four active legs, while he----