You may not have seen me, but I have seen you many
a time."

"How?"

"Oh, never mind. I can turn into anything I please, you know. And I have
been a bearskin rug, and a crystal goblet--and sometimes I have changed
from inanimate to animate nature, put on feathers, and made myself very
comfortable as a bird."

"Ha!" laughed the prince, a new light breaking in upon him as he caught
the infection of her tone, lively and mischievous. "Ha! ha! a lark,
for instance?"

"Or a magpie," answered she, with a capital imitation of Mistress Mag's
croaky voice. "Do you suppose I am always sentimental, and never funny?
If anything makes you happy, gay, or grave, don't you think it is more
than likely to come through your old godmother?"

"I believe that," said the boy tenderly, holding out his arms. They
clasped one another in a close embrace.

Suddenly Prince Dolor looked very anxious. "You will not leave me now
that I am a king? Otherwise I had rather not be a king at all. Promise
never to forsake me!"

The little old woman laughed gayly. "Forsake you? that is impossible.
But it is just possible you may forsake me. Not probable though. Your
mother never did, and she was a queen. The sweetest queen in all the
world was the Lady Dolorez."

"Tell me about her," said the boy eagerly. "As I get older I think I can
understand more. Do tell me."

"Not now. You couldn't hear me for the trumpets and the shouting. But
when you are come to the palace, ask for a long-closed upper room, which
looks out upon the Beautiful Mountains; open it and take it for your
own. Whenever you go there you will always find me, and we will talk
together about all sorts of things."

"And about my mother?"

The little old woman nodded--and kept nodding and smiling to herself
many times, as the boy repeated over and over again the sweet words he
had never known or understood--"my mother--my mother."

"Now I must go," said she, as the trumpets blared louder and louder, and
the shouts of the people showed that they would not endure any delay.
"Good-by, good-by! Open the window and out I fly."

Prince Dolor repeated gayly the musical rhyme--but all the while tried
to hold his godmother fast.

Vain, vain! for the moment that a knocking was heard at his door the sun
went behind a cloud, the bright stream of dancing motes vanished, and
the little old woman with them--he knew not where.

So Prince Dolor quitted his tower--which he had entered so mournfu