"Walpurga, you shouldn't have done such a thing as walk all the way to church. You don't know how near you are to your time, and sometimes there's too much of a good thing."
"It won't do me any harm," replied the young wife.
"And I've prayed for you this morning," said a young, saucy maid, who wore a bunch of fresh flowers in her bosom. "When the priest prayed for the queen and asked God to help her in the hour of trial, I asked myself: What's the use of my worrying about the queen? There are enough praying for her without me: and so I thought of you and said, Amen, Walpurga!"
"Stasi, I'm sure you meant well," said Walpurga deprecatingly, "but I want no share in it. You never ought to do such a thing. It's wrong to change a prayer in that way."
"She's right," said the old woman. "Why, that 'ud be just the same as taking a false oath."
"Let it go for nothing, then," said the girl.
"It must be fine to be a queen," said the old woman, folding her hands. "At this very hour, in all the churches, millions are praying for her. If such a king and queen aren't good after all that, they must be awful wicked."
The old woman, who was the midwife of the neighborhood, was always listened to with great attention. She accompanied husband and wife for a part of the way, and gave them precise information as to where she might be found at any hour during the next few days. Then, taking the mountain path which led to her dwelling, she left them, the rest of the church-goers dropping off in various directions as they reached the lanes and by-paths leading to their farms. The children always kept in front, their parents following after them.
A party of girls, who were walking along hand in hand, had much to say to one another. But at last they, too, separated and joined their parents.
The young couple were alone on the road. The glaring rays of the noonday sun were reflected from the lake.