"Like enough; it's very hard to be the housewife, with so big a house as this to keep, and so many folk in it." The queen laughed heartily. Walpurga did not know that she had said anything odd or droll and was therefore surprised at the effect of her remarks; but she soon became satisfied that all she said was quoted. This made her quite shy, although she would now and then give way to fits of extravagance and would, at such moments, delight in her own odd freaks, for they always provoked a smile. While the queen aimed to be as simple as possible in her intercourse with Walpurga, the latter was, with each succeeding day, becoming more artificial and affected. She copied herself and her whilom _naïvete_. When she knew that the queen was within hearing, she would repeat the wondrous combination of words with which she was wont to amuse the prince. She one day began to sing of her own accord and, when she had finished, she felt surprised and almost hurt, because her song had elicited no remark from the queen. Had she not sung well? The queen had said nothing, because she feared that she might embarrass her. There was a strange contrast between these two women, each of whom was trying to place herself in more perfect sympathy with the other, while both were, with every step, adding to the distance that separated them. It was a great day when the queen, accompanied by Walpurga and the crown prince, rode out for the first time. "You're a thousand times more beautiful when you're out-of-doors, in the open air. In the darkened rooms, I never knew how beautiful you were," said Walpurga to the queen, who immediately afterward had something to say in French to the Countess Brinkenstein who sat beside her. "May I ask a favor, gracious queen?" said Walpurga. "Certainly. What is it?" "I think it hurts the child to talk gibberish before it. A young soul like his understands, even if it can't speak, and it seems to me it must confuse his little brain. I hardly know how to tell you; but I feel it in my own head, and whatever affects me, affects the child." "She's right," said the queen to Countess Brinkenstein, "until the child can speak perfectly, it should hear no language but its mother tongue." "That's it--mother tongue," exclaimed Walpurga, "you've hit it. I had it on my lips, but I couldn't think of it; that's the very word. I'm, so to say, the same as a mother to the child and so--isn't it so?" "Yes, certainly. It shall be as you say in all things. See to it, my dear Brinkenstein, that after this, nothing but German be spoken before the prince. No one can tell what sounds may sink into the soul which, as yet, is but half awakened." Walpurga was delighted. There would now be no more gibberish when she was by for wherever the child was, there was she. Mademoiselle Kramer added to her happiness by informing her that they would start for the country, that is, the summer palace, within a few days. CHAPTER XIII.