"I think I had rather not look at him again," said the poor little Prince, drawing himself back into the centre of his cloak, and resuming his favorite posture, sitting like a Turk, with his arms wrapped around his feeble useless legs. "You're no good to me," he said, patting them mournfully. "You never will be any good to me. I wonder why I have you at all; I wonder why I was born at all, since I was not to grow up like other little boys." Prince Dolor sat a good while thus, and seemed to grow years older in a few minutes. Then he fancied the cloak began to rock gently to and fro, with a soothing kind of motion, as if he were in somebody's arms; somebody who did not speak, but loved and comforted him without need of words. He had placed himself so he could see nothing but the sky, and had taken off his silver ears, as well as his gold spectacles--what was the use of either when he had no legs to walk or run?--Up from below there rose a delicious sound. You have heard it hundreds of times, my children, and so have I. When I was a child I thought there was nothing so sweet; and I think so still. It was just the song of a lark, mounting higher and higher, until it came so close that Prince Dolor could distinguish its quivering wings and tiny body, almost too tiny to contain such a gush of music. "Oh, you beautiful, beautiful bird!" cried he; "I should dearly like to take you in and cuddle you. That is, if I might--if I dared." He was so absorbed that he forget all regret and pain, forgot everything in the world except the little lark, and he was just wondering if it would soar out of sight, when it suddenly closed its wings, as larks do when they mean to drop to the ground. But, instead of dropping to the ground, it dropped right into the little boy's breast. When he came in sight of Hopeless Tower, a painful thought struck him. "My pretty bird, what am I to do with you? If I take you into my room and shut you up there, you will surely die for I heard my nurse once say that the nicest thing she ever ate in her life was lark pie!" The little boy shivered all over at the thought, and in another minute he had made up his mind. "No, my bird, nothing so dreadful shall happen to you if I can help it; I would rather do without you altogether. Fly away, my darling! Good-bye my merry, merry bird." Opening his two caressing hands, in which, as for protection, he had folded it, he let the lark go. It lingered a minute, perched on the rim of the cloak, and looked at him with eyes of almost human tenderness; then away it flew. But, sometime after, when Prince Dolor had eaten his supper, and gone to bed, suddenly he heard outside the window a little faint carol--faint but cheerful--even though it was the middle of the night. The dear little lark, it had not flown away after all, but had remained about the tower and he listened to its singing and went to sleep very happy. CHAPTER VII.