She looked at him with her clear, piercing eyes, sharp enough to see
through everything, and it seemed as if they changed from bird's eyes
to human eyes--the very eyes of his godmother, whom he had not seen for
ever so long. But the minute afterward she became only a bird, and with
a screech and a chatter, spread her wings and flew away.

Prince Dolor fell into a kind of swoon of utter misery, bewilderment,
and exhaustion, and when he awoke he found himself in his own
room--alone and quiet--with the dawn just breaking, and the long rim of
yellow light in the horizon glimmering through the window-panes.



CHAPTER IX

When Prince Dolor sat up in bed, trying to remember where he was,
whither he had been, and what he had seen the day before, he perceived
that his room was empty.

Generally his nurse rather worried him by breaking his slumbers, coming
in and "setting things to rights," as she called it. Now the dust lay
thick upon chairs and tables; there was no harsh voice heard to scold
him for not getting up immediately, which, I am sorry to say, this boy
did not always do. For he so enjoyed lying still, and thinking lazily
about everything or nothing, that, if he had not tried hard against it,
he would certainly have become like those celebrated

"Two little men
Who lay in their bed till the clock struck ten."