nce, dressed
in his very best, was brought to the King, his father, for half an hour,
but his Majesty was too melancholy to pay much attention to the child.

Only once, when the King and his brother were sitting together, with
Prince Dolor playing in a corner of the room, dragging himself about
with his arms, rather than his legs, it seemed to strike the father that
all was not right with his son.

"How old is his Royal Highness?" said he, suddenly, to the nurse.

"Two years, three months, and five days, please your Majesty."

"It does not please me," said the King with a sigh. "He ought to be far
more forward than he is. Is there not something wrong about him?"

"Oh, no," said the King's brother, exchanging meaning looks with the
nurse. "Nothing to make your Majesty at all uneasy. No doubt his Royal
Highness will outgrow it in time."

"Out-grow what?"

"A slight delicacy--ahem!--in the spine--something inherited, perhaps,
from his dear mother."

"Ah, she was always delicate; but she was the sweetest woman that ever
lived. Come here, my little son."

The Prince turned to his father a small, sweet, grave face--like his
mother's, and the King smiled and held out his arms. But when the boy
came to him, not running like a boy, but wriggling awkwardly along the
floor, the royal countenance clouded.

"I ought to have been told of this. Send for all the doctors in my
kingdom immediately."

They came, and agreed in what had been pretty well known before; that
the prince must have been hurt when he was an infant. Did anybody
remember?

No, nobody. Indignantly, all the nurses denied that any such accident
had happened.

But of all this the King knew nothing, for, indeed, after the first
shock of finding out that his son could not walk, and seemed never
likely to walk, he interfered very little concerning him. He could not
walk; his limbs were mere useless additions to his body, but the body
itself was strong and sound, and his face was the same as ever--just
like his mother's face, one of the sweetest in the world!

Even the King, indifferent as he was, sometimes looked at the little
fellow with sad tenderness, noticing how cleverly he learned to crawl,
and swing himself about by his arms, so that in his own awkward way he
was as active as most children of his age.

"Poor little man! he does his best, and he is not unhappy," said the
King to his brother. "I have appointed you as Regent. In case of my
death, yo