re, Walpurga laughed incessantly, and he was at
last obliged to ask her to hold still, so that he might go on with his
work. Putting his measure into his pocket, he informed Mademoiselle
Kramer that he had ordered an exact model, and that the master of
ceremonies had favored him with several drawings, so that there might be
no doubt of success.

Finally he asked permission to see the Crown Prince. Mademoiselle Kramer
was about to let him do so, but Walpurga objected.

"Before the child is christened," said she, "no one shall look at it
just out of curiosity, and least of all a tailor, or else the child will
never turn out the right sort of man."

The tailor took his leave, Mademoiselle Kramer having politely hinted to
him that nothing could be done with the superstition of the lower
orders, and that it would not do to irritate the nurse.

This occurrence induced Walpurga to administer the first serious
reprimand to Mademoiselle Kramer. She could not understand why she was
so willing to make an exhibition of the child. "Nothing does a child
more harm than to let strangers look at it in its sleep, and a tailor
at that."

All the wild fun with which, in popular songs, tailors are held up to
scorn and ridicule, found vent in Walpurga, and she began singing:--

"Just list, ye braves, who love to roam!
A snail was chasing a tailor home.
And if Old Shears hadn't run so fast,
The snail would surely have caught him at last."

Mademoiselle Kramer's acquaintance with the court tailor had lowered
her in Walpurga's esteem; and with an evident effort to mollify the
latter, Mademoiselle Kramer asked:--

"Does the idea of your new and beautiful clothes really afford you no
pleasure?"

"To be frank with you, no! I don't wear them for my own sake, but for
that of others, who dress me to please themselves. It's all the same to
me, however! I've given myself up to them, and suppose I must submit."

"May I come in?" asked a pleasant voice. Countess Irma entered the room.
Extending both her hands to Walpurga, she said:--

"God greet you, my countrywoman! I am also from the Highlands, seven
hours distance from your village. I know it well, and once sailed over
the lake with your father. Does he still live?"

"Alas! no: he was drowned, and the lake hasn't given up its dead."

"He was a fine-looking old man, and you are the very image of him."

"I am glad to find some one else here who knew my father. The co