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."

It was striking ten now, and still no nurse was to be seen. He was
rather relieved at first, for he felt so tired; and besides, when he
stretched out his arm, he found to his dismay that he had gone to bed in
his clothes.

Very uncomfortable he felt, of course; and just a little frightened.
Especially when he began to call and call again, but nobody answered.
Often he used to think how nice it would be to get rid of his nurse and
live in this tower all by himself--like a sort of monarch able to do
everything he liked, and leave undone all that he did not want to do;
but now that this seemed really to have happened, he did not like it at
all.

"Nurse,--dear nurse,--please come back!" he called out. "Come back, and
I will be the best boy in all the land."

And when she did not come back, and nothing but silence answered his
lamentable call, he very nearly began to cry.

"This won't do," he said at last, dashing the tears from his eyes. "It's
just like a baby, and I'm a big boy--shall be a man some day. What has
happened, I wonder? I'll go and see."

He sprang out of bed,--not to his feet, alas! but to his poor little
weak knees, and crawled on them from room to room. All the four chambers
were deserted--not forlorn or untidy, for everything seemed to have been
done for his comfort--the breakfast and dinner things were laid, the
food spread in order. He might live "like a prince," as the proverb
is, for several days. But the place was entirely forsaken--there was
evidently not a creature but himself in the solitary tower.

A great fear came upon the poor boy. Lonely as his life had been, he had
never known what it was to be absolutely alone. A kind of despair seized
him--no violent anger or terror, but a sort of patient desolation.

"What in the world am I to do?" thought he, and sat down in the middle
of the floor, half inclined to believe that it would be better to give
up entirely, lay himself down, and die.

This feeling, however, did not last long, for he was young and