“Hurrah for Prince Dolor! Let Prince Dolor be our sovereign!” rang from end to end of the kingdom. Everybody tried to remember what a dear baby he once was--how like his mother, who had been so sweet and kind, and his father, the finest-looking king that ever reigned. Nobody remembered his lameness--or, if they did, they passed it over as a matter of no consequence. They were determined to have him reign over them, boy as he was--perhaps just because he was a boy, since in that case the great nobles thought they should be able to do as they liked with the country. Accordingly, with a fickleness not confined to the people of Nomansland, no sooner was the late King laid in his grave than they pronounced him to have been a usurper; turned all his family out of the palace, and left it empty for the reception of the new sovereign, whom they went to fetch with great rejoicing, a select body of lords, gentlemen, and soldiers traveling night and day in solemn procession through the country until they reached Hopeless Tower. There they found the Prince, sitting calmly on the floor--deadly pale, indeed, for he expected a quite different end from this, and was resolved, if he had to die, to die courageously, like a Prince and a King. But when they hailed him as Prince and King, and explained to him how matters stood, and went down on their knees before him, offering the crown (on a velvet cushion, with four golden tassels, each nearly as big as his head),--small though he was and lame, which lameness the courtiers pretended not to notice,--there came such a glow into his face, such a dignity into his demeanor, that he became beautiful, king-like. “Yes,” he said, “if you desire it, I will be your king. And I will do my best to make my people happy.” Then there arose, from inside and outside the tower, such a shout as never yet was heard across the lonely plain. Prince Dolor shrank a little from the deafening sound. “How shall I be able to rule all this great people? You forget, my lords, that I am only a little boy still.” “Not so very little,” was the respectful answer. “We have searched in the records, and found that your Royal Highness--your Majesty, I mean--is fifteen years old.” “Am I?” said Prince Dolor; and his first thought was a thoroughly childish pleasure that he should now have a birthday, with a whole nation to keep it. Then he remembered that his childish days were done. He was a monarch now. Even his nurse, to whom, the moment he saw her, he had held out his hand, kissed it reverently, and called him ceremoniously “his Majesty the King.” “A king must be always a king, I suppose,” said he half-sadly, when, the ceremonies over, he had been left to himself for just ten minutes, to put off his boy's clothes and be reattired in magnificent robes, before he was conveyed away from his tower to the royal palace.