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 end of his provisions--and what was to happen next? Get out of the tower he could not: the ladder the deaf-mute used was always carried away again; and if it had not been, how could the poor boy have used it? And even if he slung or flung himself down, and by miraculous chance came alive to the foot of the tower, how could he run away? Fate had been very hard to him, or so it seemed.