Of all this the Prince and John guessed nothing.  For the King seemed to them no more gruff and grum than usual.  All the wishes of the strangers were regarded, and they were treated like distinguished guests in the palace.  But the Hermit kept his eyes open.  And one other was not blind to the King’s hatred.  Clare, the little Princess who had never been loved by her father, knew the meaning of the black looks which he sometimes cast upon the two forest-comers, and her heart was uneasy, for she loved them both.

The Prince grew so much better that he could walk about.  One day he was lying upon his couch in a balcony overlooking the royal park.  The Hermit sat close by, reading aloud from the book which he was teaching the Prince to love, as he had taught John.  The little Princess bent over her embroidery frame at the foot of the couch, and John himself, on the floor at her feet, was playing with Brutus.  The other animals and birds were straying about the balcony, or lay cuddled in the Prince’s lap.  John thought how like this scene was to the Animal Kingdom in the woods; yet how unlike.  And he glanced from the Prince to the Princess with a smile of content.  It seemed hardly possible that this was the land where no pets were allowed; where hunting was the favorite sport of the King and his son!

Suddenly, in a pause of the reading, the Prince put out his hand.

“Friends,” he said, “you have taught me many things in these weeks that you have dwelt under this roof.  You have cured me; you have made me laugh.  I have been thinking much of late how it is that where you come folk are happy.  Your faces make the world smile.  How different from my father and me!  We have always made every one weep.  There has been something wrong, I know not what.  No one loves us,—­not even Clare here.”

“O brother!” protested the little maid, “I have always loved you.  But never so dearly as now, when you have grown so kind.”

John spoke gently.  “You will change all this when you are king,” he said.

The Prince shook his head.  “No, they will never love me as they do you.  I would fain be different, but I can never be like you, John.  You should be king, not I.”

John laughed.  “And what would become of the Animal Kingdom then?” he said.  “My father and I have been talking together.  We must soon go back to our woods and our little friends there.”

“Oh, you must not go!” gasped the Prince, turning pale.  “You must never leave me!  I can never again be alone with the King!”

He looked so terror-stricken that the Hermit and John were silent for pity.

“I have been thinking,” went on the Prince gravely, “that when I am king, if that time ever comes,—­and they say that it must, since there is no other son of our house,—­I shall need much help, for I am weak and not wise.  You, good father, I would have you for my counselor.  And you,”—­he laid his arm affectionately on John’s shoulder,—­“you shall be my brother and share the throne with me.”