The Prince noticed that her feeling toward him was changing and did not shrink from her.
"Nurse—dear nurse," said he, one day, "I don't mean to vex you, but tell me—what is a king? Shall I ever be one?"
Then the idea came to her—what harm would it be, even if he did know his own history? Perhaps he ought to know it—for there had been many changes in Nomansland, as in most other countries. Something might happen—who could tell? Possibly a crown would yet be set upon those pretty, fair curls—which she began to think prettier than ever when she saw the imaginary crown upon them.
She sat down, considering whether her oath, "never to say a word to Prince Dolor about himself," would be broken, if she were to take a pencil and write, what was to be told. It was a miserable deception. But then, she was an unhappy woman, more to be pitied than scorned.
After long doubt, she put her finger to her lips, and taking the Prince's slate—with a sponge tied to it, ready to rub out the writing in a minute—she wrote:
"You are a king."
Prince Dolor started. His face grew pale and then flushed all over; his eyes glistened; he held himself erect. Lame as he was, anybody could see he was born to be a king.
"Hush!" said the nurse, as he was beginning to speak. And then, terribly frightened all the while, she wrote down in a few sentences, his history. How his parents had died, how his uncle had stolen the throne, and sent him to end his days in this lonely tower.
"I, too," added she, bursting into tears. "Unless, indeed, you could get out into the world, and fight for your rights like a man. And fight for me also, My Prince, that I may not die in this desolate place."
"Poor old nurse," said the boy tenderly. For somehow, boy as he was, when he heard he was born to be a king, he felt like a man—like a king—who could afford to be tender because he was strong.