as so exceedingly shabby--the only shabby thing that the Prince
had ever seen in his life.

"And what use will it be to me?" said he sadly. "I have no need of
outdoor clothes, as I never go out. Why was this given me, I wonder? and
what in the world am I to do with it? She must be a rather funny person,
this dear godmother of mine."

Nevertheless, because she was his godmother, and had given him the
cloak, he folded it carefully and put it away, poor and shabby as it
was, hiding it in a safe corner of his top cupboard, which his nurse
never meddled with. He did not want her to find it, or to laugh at it or
at his godmother--as he felt sure she would, if she knew all.

There it lay, and by and by he forgot all about it; nay, I am sorry to
say that, being but a child, and not seeing her again, he almost forgot
his sweet old godmother, or thought of her only as he did of the angels
or fairies that he read of in his books, and of her visit as if it had
been a mere dream of the night.

There were times, certainly, when he recalled her: of early mornings,
like that morning when she appeared beside him, and late evenings, when
the gray twilight reminded him of the color of her hair and her pretty
soft garments; above all, when, waking in the middle of the night, with
the stars peering in at his window, or the moonlight shining across his
little bed, he would not have been surprised to see her standing beside
it, looking at him with those beautiful tender eyes, which seemed to
have a pleasantness and comfort in them different from anything he had
ever known.

But she never came, and gradually she slipped out of his memory--only
a boy's memory, after all; until something happened which made him
remember her, and want her as he had never wanted anything before.

Prince Dolor fell ill. He caught--his nurse could not tell how--a
complaint common to the people of Nomansland, called the doldrums, as
unpleasant as measles or any other of our complaints; and it made him
restless, cross, and disagreeable. Even when a little better, he was too
weak to enjoy anything, but lay all day long on his sofa, fidgeting his
nurse extremely--while, in her intense terror lest he might die, she
fidgeted him still more. At last, seeing he really was getting well, she
left him to himself--which he was most glad of, in spite of his dullness
and dreariness. There he lay, alone, quite alone.

Now and then an irritable fit came over him, in which he