wondered what had become of his mother and why she never came to see
him.

Then, in his history lessons, of course he read about kings and princes,
and the governments of different countries, and the events that happened
there. And though he but faintly took in all this, still he did take
it in a little, and worried his young brain about it, and perplexed
his nurse with questions, to which she returned sharp and mysterious
answers, which only set him thinking the more.

He had plenty of time for thinking. After his last journey in the
traveling-cloak, the journey which had given him so much pain, his
desire to see the world somehow faded away. He contented himself with
reading his books, and looking out of the tower windows, and listening
to his beloved little lark, which had come home with him that day, and
never left him again.

True, it kept out of the way; and though his nurse sometimes dimly heard
it, and said "What is that horrid noise outside?" she never got the
faintest chance of making it into a lark pie. Prince Dolor had his pet
all to himself, and though he seldom saw it, he knew it was near him,
and he caught continually, at odd hours of the day, and even in the
night, fragments of its delicious song.

All during the winter--so far as there ever was any difference between
summer and winter in Hopeless Tower--the little bird cheered and amused
him. He scarcely needed anything more--not even his traveling-cloak,
which lay bundled up unnoticed in a corner, tied up in its innumerable
knots.