"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.

In the mean while there was a special reason for detaining Walpurga and
the prince in the city.

Baron Schoning had spoken of the matter, while at breakfast one day,
and the suggestion which had been offered as a bit of pleasantry was
well received. The millions who were anxious to behold their future
ruler were to be gratified by the work of an instant. It was determined
that there should be a photograph of the crown prince borne aloft on
the hands of the people, Walpurga representing the people. She urged
various objections to the idea, and said it was wrong to let a child
less than a year old look into a mirror, and quite wrong to have its
likeness taken. "As long as you haven't let a child look in the glass,
it can see itself in the hollow of its left hand." Finding that her
opposition was of no avail, she dressed herself in her best gown. The
crown prince looked very pretty, and