he threw up her
hands, exclaiming:

"What is the greatest punishment? It is not hell, where other guilty
ones suffer with us! No; to be conscious of guilt and yet condemned to
remain beside a pure and happy creature; that is far worse than all the
torments of hell!"

"God keep you, Irma! God keep you!" shrieked the parrot. Irma started
with a shudder.

CHAPTER XV.

Spring returned, ushered in by the merry singing of larks and finches,
and bringing with it the latest Paris fashions. The queen now appeared
in public, and the ladies of the capital were delighted to pattern
their costumes after hers.

The queen drove out, with Irma beside her, and Walpurga and the prince
opposite.

"You must not worry when you're at home again," said the queen to
Walpurga.

Addressing the queen in French, Irma said, with a smile: "Countess
Brinkenstein would disapprove of your manifesting any interest in the
future fortunes of one whose term of service is at an end."

With a degree of boldness that surprised her two well-wishers, Walpurga
said: "There'll be one advantage at any rate, for, at home, they won't
treat me as if I were deaf and dumb."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, they wouldn't, while I was about, say things that I can't
understand."

Irma endeavored to pacify her, but without avail. Walpurga's longing
for home had made her exacting and dissatisfied. She felt ill at ease
everywhere, and felt sure that the very people who had done so much to
humor and spoil her would soon get along without her.

There was another and a deeper cause for her feeling annoyed when Irma
spoke French. A youthful-looking nurse from one of the French cantons
of Switzerland had become a member of the prince's household. She could
not understand a word of German, and that had been the principal reason
for engaging her. The prince was to speak French before he acquired any
other language.

Walpurga and the new-comer were, as regarded each other, like two
mutes. Nor was she otherwise favorably disposed toward the tall,
handsome girl with the French cap. She was, indeed, quite jealous of
her. What had the foreigner to do with the child? She was, at times,
angry at the child itself.

"You'll soon _parlez vous_ so that I shan't be able to understand a
word," she would say, when alone with him, and would feel quite angry;
and, the very next minute, she would exclaim: "God forgive me! How well
it is that I'll