"Sing me one of those that you call silly songs." "No, I can't; they're lonely songs." "What do you mean by lonely songs?" "I don't know, but that's what they call 'em." "Ah, I understand: they can only be sung when one is solitary and alone." "Yes, I suppose that's it; the queen's right." Although the queen endeavored to induce her to sing, Walpurga protested that she could not and finally became so agitated that she burst into tears. The queen experienced some difficulty in pacifying her, but succeeded at last, and then Walpurga, taking the child with her, returned to her room. On the following day Walpurga was again summoned to the queen, who said: "You're right, Walpurga. You can't sing to me. I've been thinking a great deal about you. The bird on the tree doesn't sing at one's bidding. Free nature cannot be directed by a baton. You needn't sing for me. I shall not ask it of you again." Walpurga had intended to sing to the queen that day. She had chosen her prettiest songs and now the queen actually ordered her not to sing, and even compared her to a bird. "Palace folk," thought she, "are queer folk." "I understand," continued the queen, "that in your neighborhood they believe in the Lady of the Lake. Do you believe in her, too?" "Believe in her? I don't know, but they tell of her. Father saw her three days before he died, and that was a sure sign that he would soon die. They say, too, that she's the Lady of Waldeck." "Who is the Lady of Waldeck?" "She's the Lady of Wörth." "What is Wörth?" "A bit of land in the middle of the lake, with water all round it." "Do you mean an island?" "Yes, an island; we sometimes call it that, too. "And what is the story of the Lady of Waldeck?" "Once upon a time, many thousand years ago, there was a man, and he was a knight by the name of Waldeck, and he was a crusader. He and lots of emperors and kings went off to our Saviour's grave in the Holy Land. He left his wife at home and before he went away, he said to her: 'You're good and you'll remain true to me'; and when, after many years, he returned, quite black with the eastern sun, he found his wife with another man, and so he bound the two together, put them in a boat and rowed them over to Wörth where he left them; and there they lay, and had nothing to eat, and nothing to drink, and were tied together and died of hunger, and the birds of the air ate them. They were adulterers and it served them right; but he was horrible for all. And even nowadays, on spirit nights, you can often see a little blue flame on the island of Wörth, and they say that the Lady of Waldeck's soul has passed into a nymph and that she must wander about." Such was Walpurga's story. "I haven't frightened you, I hope?" said she, anxiously, as she observed the queen's fixed gaze. "That's what they say. But may be it's only talk, after all." "No, no. Don't be anxious about that," cried the queen. "So many different thoughts pass through my mind."