o have to do," said he,
laughing. "But my godmother once said princes need never mind doing
anything."

And then he thought a little of his godmother. Not of summoning her, or
asking her to help him,--she had evidently left him to help himself,
and he was determined to try his best to do it, being a very proud and
independent boy,--but he remembered her tenderly and regret-fully, as if
even she had been a little hard upon him--poor, forlorn boy that he was.
But he seemed to have seen and learned so much within the last few days
that he scarcely felt like a boy, but a man--until he went to bed at
night.

When I was a child, I used often to think how nice it would be to live
in a little house all by my own self--a house built high up in a tree,
or far away in a forest, or halfway up a hillside so deliciously alone
and independent. Not a lesson to learn--but no! I always liked learning
my lessons. Anyhow, to choose the lessons I liked best, to have as many
books to read and dolls to play with as ever I wanted: above all, to be
free and at rest, with nobody to tease or trouble or scold me, would be
charming. For I was a lonely little thing, who liked quietness--as many
children do; which other children, and sometimes grown-up people even,
cannot understand. And so I can understand Prince Dolor.

After his first despair, he was not merely comfortable, but actually
happy in his solitude, doing everything for himself, and enjoying
everything by himself--until bedtime. Then he did not like it at all.
No more, I suppose, than other children would have liked my imaginary
house in a tree when they had had sufficient of their own company.

But the Prince had to bear it--and he did bear it, like a prince--for
fully five days. All that time he got up in the morning and went to bed
at night without having spoken to a creature, or, indeed, heard a
single sound. For even his little lark was silent; and as for his
traveling-cloak, either he never thought about it, or else it had been
spirited away--for he made no use of it, nor attempted to do so.

A very strange existence it was, those five lonely days. He never
entirely forgot it. It threw him back upon himself, and into himself--in
a way that all of us have to learn when we grow up, and are the better
for it; but it is somewhat hard learning.

On the sixth day Prince Dolor had a strange composure in his look, but
he was very grave and thin and white. He had nearly come to the en