f the
tower and climbed it as before, laden with provisions and many other
things. He always saw the Prince, so as to make sure that the child was
alive and well, and then went away until the following month.

Prince Dolor had every luxury that even a Prince could need, and the one
thing wanting--love, never having known, he did not miss. His nurse was
very kind to him, though she was a wicked woman. Perhaps it made her
better to be shut up with an innocent child.

By-and-by he began to learn lessons--not that his nurse had been ordered
to teach him, but she did it partly to amuse herself. She was not a
stupid woman, and Prince Dolor was by no means a stupid child; so they
got on very well.

When he grew older he began reading the books which the mute brought to
him. As they told him of the things in the outside world he longed to
see them.

From this time a change came over the boy. He began to look sad and
thin, and to shut himself up for hours without speaking. His nurse had
been forbidden, on pain of death, to tell him anything about himself. He
knew he was Prince Dolor, because she always addressed him as "My
prince" and "your Royal Highness," but what a prince was, he had not the
least idea.

He had been reading one day, but feeling all the while that to read
about things which you never can see is like hearing about a beautiful
dinner while you are starving. He grew melancholy, gazing out of the
window-slit.

Not a very cheerful view--just the plain and the sky--but he liked it.
He used to think, if he could only fly out of that window, up to the sky
or down to the plain, how nice it would be! Perhaps when he died--his
nurse had told him once in anger that he would never leave the tower
till he died--he might be able to do this.

"And I wish I had somebody to tell me all about it; about that and many
other things; somebody that would be fond of me, like my poor white
kitten."

Here the tears came into his eyes, for the boy's one friend had been a
little white kitten, which the deaf mute, kindly smiling, once took out
of his pocket and gave him. For four weeks it was his constant companion
and plaything, till one moonlight night it took a fancy for wandering,
climbed on to the parapet of the tower, dropped over and disappeared. It
was not killed, he hoped; indeed, he almost fancied he saw it pick
itself up and scamper away, but he never caught sight of it again.

"Yes, I wish I had a person, a real liv