The bells were ringing merrily. Their sounds were re-echoed by the rugged mountains, and then floated out over the lake, the smooth, green, glassy surface of which mirrored the forest-clad shores, the rocky crags, and the skies above. Crowds were issuing from the church, the only building at the upper end of the lake. The men, donning their green hats with the black cock plumes, took their pipes from their pockets and struck a light; the women busied themselves with their dress, adjusted the pointed, green hats, smoothed their aprons, and tied the broad streaming ends of their silk kerchiefs anew. Following after the old women, who are always the last to leave the church, there was a handsome young couple. The wife was tall and stout, the husband slender and hardy as a pine. His appearance showed the effects of the week's hard work. His pointed, green hat, on which there was no hunter's badge, was worn aslant; he took off his jacket and laid it over his shoulder, and then, with a smile which seemed somewhat out of keeping with his weather-beaten face, said: "Don't you see? This is much better. Now there's no danger of your getting squeezed in the crowd." The young wife nodded assent. A group of women and girls seemed to have been waiting for her. One of the older members of the party said: "Walpurga, you shouldn't have done such a thing as walk all the way to church. You don't know how near you are to your time, and sometimes there's too much of a good thing." "It won't do me any harm," replied the young wife. "And I've prayed for you this morning," said a young, saucy maid, who wore a bunch of fresh flowers in her bosom. "When the priest prayed for the queen and asked God to help her in the hour of trial, I asked myself: What's the use of my worrying about the queen? There are enough praying for her without me: and so I thought of you and said, Amen, Walpurga!" "Stasi, I'm sure you meant well," said Walpurga deprecatingly, "but I want no share in it. You never ought to do such a thing. It's wrong to change a prayer in that way." "She's right," said the old woman. "Why, that 'ud be just the same as taking a false oath." "Let it go for nothing, then," said the girl. "It must be fine to be a queen," said the old woman, folding her hands. "At this very hour, in all the churches, millions are praying for her. If such a king and queen aren't good after all that, they must be awful wicked." The old woman, who was the midwife of the neighborhood, was always listened to with great attention. She accompanied husband and wife for a part of the way, and gave them precise information as to where she might be found at any hour during the next few days. Then, taking the mountain path which led to her dwelling, she left them, the rest of the church-goers dropping off in various directions as they reached the lanes and by-paths leading to their farms. The children always kept in front, their parents following after them.