This happened so many times that at last people began to talk about it. A prince, and not able to stand on his legs! What a misfortune to the country! After a time he became stronger and his body grew, but his limbs remained shrunken. No one talked of this to the King, for he was very sad. The King desired that the Prince should keep the name given him by the little old woman in grey and so he was known as Dolor. Once a week, according to established state custom, the Prince, dressed in his very best, was brought to the King, his father, for half an hour, but his Majesty was too melancholy to pay much attention to the child. Only once, when the King and his brother were sitting together, with Prince Dolor playing in a corner of the room, dragging himself about with his arms, rather than his legs, it seemed to strike the father that all was not right with his son. "How old is his Royal Highness?" said he, suddenly, to the nurse. "Two years, three months, and five days, please your Majesty." "It does not please me," said the King with a sigh. "He ought to be far more forward than he is. Is there not something wrong about him?" "Oh, no," said the King's brother, exchanging meaning looks with the nurse. "Nothing to make your Majesty at all uneasy. No doubt his Royal Highness will outgrow it in time." "Out-grow what?" "A slight delicacy--ahem!--in the spine--something inherited, perhaps, from his dear mother." "Ah, she was always delicate; but she was the sweetest woman that ever lived. Come here, my little son." The Prince turned to his father a small, sweet, grave face--like his mother's, and the King smiled and held out his arms. But when the boy came to him, not running like a boy, but wriggling awkwardly along the floor, the royal countenance clouded. "I ought to have been told of this. Send for all the doctors in my kingdom immediately." They came, and agreed in what had been pretty well known before; that the prince must have been hurt when he was an infant. Did anybody remember? No, nobody. Indignantly, all the nurses denied that any such accident had happened. But of all this the King knew nothing, for, indeed, after the first shock of finding out that his son could not walk, and seemed never likely to walk, he interfered very little concerning him. He could not walk; his limbs were mere useless additions to his body, but the body itself was strong and sound, and his face was the same as ever--just like his mother's face, one of the sweetest in the world! Even the King, indifferent as he was, sometimes looked at the little fellow with sad tenderness, noticing how cleverly he learned to crawl, and swing himself about by his arms, so that in his own awkward way he was as active as most children of his age. "Poor little man! he does his best, and he is not unhappy," said the King to his brother. "I have appointed you as Regent. In case of my death, you will take care of my poor little boy?"