with her in the hour of suffering, as she had been with her through all
the joys and sorrows of her simple life. Then came the supreme joy of
the awakening, with a new life by her side, a baby-girl groping
helplessly for the mother's breast. Then--was it only yesterday?--when
she was waiting for the return of the christening party, a carriage
drove up with the village doctor and an elegant stranger. There was much
beating about the bush, and then it came out like a thunderbolt. The
stranger was a great doctor from the capital, entrusted with the mission
to find in the mountains an honest, comely peasant woman, and married
she must be, to act as wet-nurse for the expected crown prince or
princess.

Then Hanseï came home with the merry party--there was much storming and
angry refusal; but finally the practical sense of the peasant folk
prevailed. It was, after all, only for a year, and it would mean comfort
and wealth, instead of hunger and grinding poverty. And scarcely had
their consent been wrung from them, when shouting and cheering announced
the great event of the crown prince's birth. Then came that strange,
long drive over hill and dale, through the dark night; and now, in the
Royal Palace, she tried to collect herself, to grasp the meaning of all
that splendour, the unintelligible ceremonious talk and bearing of those
about her. She was to be taken at once to see the queen and her precious
charge.

Walpurga was full of happiness when she left the queen's bedroom.
Touched by the comely young peasant-woman's naive and familiar
kindliness, the queen, who seemed to her beautiful as an angel, had
kissed her, and, on noticing a tear, had said: "Don't cry, Walpuga! You
are a mother, too, like myself!" The little prince took to his nurse
without much trouble, and she soon became accustomed to her new life,