ng
Irma's hands and weeping for joy. "Now we'll have sunshine! Now we'll
have day!"

Irma quieted the excited woman, who said:

"I'll go and tell the queen at once. She's the only one at home, and is
up on yonder hill, painting; she doesn't care to go on these holiday
excursions, and here every day seems a holiday."

Irma instructed Walpurga not to tell the queen, and said that she would
join her. She went to her room and sat there for a long while, buried
in thought. She felt as if she had extended a friendly hand and that no
one had clasped it in return.

In the hallway, they were moving trunks about. Suddenly, she thought of
the time when she sat in her room, an orphan child, clad in black, and
heard them moving her mother's coffin about in the adjoining apartment.

Why had it occurred to her at that moment? She arose--she could no
longer endure being alone. She hastily changed her dress and went to
the queen.

The queen saw her coming and advanced to meet her.

Irma bent low and made an effort to kiss her hand.

The queen held her up and, embracing her, imprinted a tender kiss upon
her lips.

"You're the only one who dare touch the lips that my father has
kissed," said Irma--that is, she did not say it aloud, but simply moved
her lips as if forming the words. Deep within her soul, arose a
thought: I'd rather die I a thousand deaths, than sadden that guileless
heart.

The thought illumined her countenance with a noble expression, and the
queen, all delight, exclaimed:

"Oh how beautiful, how radiant you are, Countess Irma!"

Irma dropped her eyes and knelt down beside the child's cradle. Her
eyes were so lustrous that the child put out its hand as if to seize
them.

"He's right," said Walpurga, "he tries to catch the light already, but
I think your eyes have grown larger than they used to be."

Irma went with Walpurga and excused herself for not having visited the
cottage by the lake. She then told her of her friend in the convent.

"And how's your father?" asked Walpurga.

Irma was startled. The queen had not even inquired about her father.
Walpurga was the only one who had asked about him.

She told her that he knew her mother, and also her uncle, who often
burnt pitch in the forest.

"Yes, he's my mother's brother; so you know him, too?"

"I don't, but my father does."

Walpurga told her about her uncle Peter, who was known as the "little
pitchman," and vowed that she would send him some