pie now--and gone quietly to bed, the old familiar little bed, where he
was accustomed to sleep, or lie awake contentedly thinking--suddenly
he heard outside the window a little faint carol--faint but
cheerful--cheerful even though it was the middle of the night.

The dear little lark! it had not flown away, after all. And it was
truly the most extraordinary bird, for, unlike ordinary larks, it kept
hovering about the tower in the silence and darkness of the night,
outside the window or over the roof. Whenever he listened for a moment,
he heard it singing still.

He went to sleep as happy as a king.



CHAPTER VII

"Happy as a king." How far kings are happy I cannot say, no more than
could Prince Dolor, though he had once been a king himself. But he
remembered nothing about it, and there was nobody to tell him, except
his nurse, who had been forbidden upon pain of death to let him know
anything about his dead parents, or the king his uncle, or indeed any
part of his own history.

Sometimes he speculated about himself, whether he had had a father and
mother as other little boys had what they had been like, and why he
had never seen them. But, knowing nothing about them, he did not miss
them--only once or twice, reading pretty stories about little children
and their mothers, who helped them when they were in difficulty and
comforted them when they were sick, he feeling ill and dull and lonely,