Prince Dolor blushed extremely. "I--I put it away in the cupboard; I
suppose it is there still."

"You have never used it; you dislike it?"

He hesitated, no; wishing to be impolite. "Don't you think it's--just a
little old and shabby for a prince?"

The old woman laughed--long and loud, though very sweetly.

"Prince, indeed! Why, if all the princes in the world craved for it,
they couldn't get it, unless I gave it them. Old and shabby! It's the
most valuable thing imaginable! Very few ever have it; but I thought
I would give it to you, because--because you are different from other
people."

"Am I?" said the Prince, and looked first with curiosity, then with a
sort of anxiety, into his godmother's face, which was sad and grave,
with slow tears beginning to steal down.

She touched his poor little legs. "These are not like those of other
little boys."

"Indeed!--my nurse never told me that."

"Very likely not. But it is time you were told; and I tell you, because
I love you."

"Tell me what, dear godmother?"