Walpurga blushed scarlet.
"Why do you look at me so?" asked Countess Irma, "don't you know me?"
"Of course I do, but do you know who you look like? like the Lady of the Lake. When she rises from the waves, her dress hangs about her in a sea of folds just like yours."
Irma laughed, while she, in High German, told the prince and princess what the nurse had been saying. The prince nodded to Walpurga much as he would have done with a dumb animal to which he could not render himself intelligible.
"But Countess Irma's feet are not swan's feet. Don't believe that, Walpurga," said the king laughing. "Come, 'Lady of the Lake.'"
They mounted their horses and rode away.
It was time for the prince to return.
On their return, they at once repaired to the new apartments on the ground floor, into which everything had been removed during their absence.
They now had sunlight at all hours of the day. The apartments opened out on the park, where the blackbird sang in the broad daylight, and where the breezes were laden with the odor of the orange bushes. Tall trees were whispering in the wind and a great fountain was constantly murmuring and plashing.
Walpurga was quite happy, and the fountain was her greatest delight.