ty, but which could not be
felled, because no one could get up to the rocks on which they were. A
chattering magpie, sitting on the high branches of a beautiful pine,
seemed to be making sport of him. After he had again and again passed
his hand over his face, Hansei became conscious of the thoughts that
had engaged him in the midst of all this trouble. There was nothing
wrong in it--he was sure of that; but this was not the time to think of
such things, and, as if the trouble were now dawning on him for the
first time, he was overwhelmed with grief.

He turned back and went toward the hut. The doctor was just coming out.

"You are the freehold farmer, I suppose?"

"Yes; and you're the doctor?"

"Yes."

"How is she?"

"I don't think she will die before evening."

Hansei's eyes filled with tears.

The uncle asked Gunther to allow him to fetch out the little kid. He
granted his request. Stepping softly, he brought it out, gave it
something to drink and, carrying it back again, placed it at the sick
girl's feet.

"She opened her eyes and nodded to me, but she didn't say a word; and
then she closed her eyes again," said the uncle.

Hansei begged that he might be permitted to see Irmgard once more. He
was allowed to look through the crevice in the shutter. When Gunther
again returned to the sick-room, Hansei, weeping as if his heart would
break, walked out along the road that led toward the town.

"Uncle's right: she's become like an angel," said he to himself.

The calf that was born on the first day that they had come up to the
shepherd's hut seemed conscious of its special claims on Hansei. In
spite of all he could do it kept running after him for salt. Hansei
succeeded in satisfying it, by giving it the last morsel of bread that
he had about him.

When he reached the woods, he was obliged to sit down; and there he
wept and would, now and then, look about him as if bewildered. How
could it be possible that the sun was still shining, the cuckoo crying,
and the hawk screaming, while she who was up there was breathing her
last--

What could Walpurga want of the queen? "Her place is up there," thought
he to himself, again and again.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Following the course of the brook, Walpurga had hurried down the
mountain-side. She soon saw the little town and the farmhouse, on the
roof of which a bright flag was fluttering.

Walpurga sat down on a rock by the stream