lked in processions, never reviewed his troops
mounted on a magnificent charger, nor did any of the things which make
a show monarch so much appreciated, he was able for all the duties and
a great many of the pleasures of his rank. When he held his levees,
not standing, but seated on a throne ingeniously contrived to hide his
infirmity, the people thronged to greet him; when he drove out
through the city streets, shouts followed him wherever he went--every
countenance brightened as he passed, and his own, perhaps, was the
brightest of all.

First, because, accepting his affliction as inevitable, he took it
patiently; second, because, being a brave man, he bore it bravely,
trying to forget himself, and live out of himself, and in and for other
people. Therefore other people grew to love him so well that I think
hundreds of his subjects might have been found who were almost ready to
die for their poor lame king.

He never gave them a queen. When they implored him to choose one, he
replied that his country was his bride, and he desired no other. But
perhaps the real reason was that he shrank from any change; and that no
wife in all the world would have been found so perfect, so lovable, so
tender to him in all his weaknesses as his beautiful old godmother.

His twenty-four other godfathers and godmothers, or as many of them as
were still alive, crowded round him as soon as he ascended the throne.
He was very civil to them all, but adopted none of the names they had
given him, keeping to the one by which he had been always known, though
it had now almost lost its meaning; for King Dolor was one of the
happiest and cheerfulest men alive.

He did a good many things, however, unlike most men and most kings,
which a little astonished his subjects. First, he pardoned the condemned
woman who had been his nurse, and ordained that from henceforth there
should be no such thing as the punishment of death in Nomansland. All
capital criminals were to be sent to perpetual imprisonment in Hopeless
Tower and the plain round about it, where they could do no harm to
anybody, and might in time do a little good, as the woman had done.

Another surprise he shortly afterward gave the nation. He recalled his
uncle's family, who had fled away in terror to another country, and
restored them to all their honors in their own. By and by he chose the
eldest son of his eldest cousin (who had been dead a year), and had him
educated in the royal pal