“Is that your little girl?” the Queen asks him, interested.
“Yes, ma’am, she’s my Cecily.... She’ll be three years old next month.”
“But ... her mother?” Her Majesty asks with some hesitation, and, as the man shakes his head, “you are a widower?”
But he makes another sign of negation. At that the Queen, greatly moved, rises, goes to the cradle, and looks at Cecily, who has fallen asleep again, tenderly clasping to her heart a little pasteboard poodle.
“Poor child!” she murmurs.
“Don’t you think, ma’am,” the gate-keeper thereupon says in a hoarse voice, “don’t you think that a mother must be very heartless to leave her daughter at that age? As for her leaving me, after all, that is partly my fault.... I was wrong to marry a wife too young for me, wrong to let her go to town, where she made undesirable acquaintances. But to leave this darling!... Is it not a scandal?... Well, well, I’ll have to rear her all by myself, poor little brat!... It’s difficult, I can tell you, because of my duties.... At night I have often to leave her there screaming and crying, when I hear the train whistle.... But in the day-time, you see, I carry her about with me, and she is quite used to it already, the darling, she’s not afraid of the railway now.... Why, yesterday I held her in my left arm, while I held out my flag with my right. Well, she did not even tremble when the express passed.... What bothers me most, you know, is sewing her dresses and bonnets. It’s a good thing that I’ve been a corporal in the Zouaves in my day, and know a little about needles and thread.”
“But, my poor man,” replies the Queen, “that is a very difficult task.... See here, I should like to help you.... There must be a village in the neighbourhood, and in that village some respectable people who would undertake to look after your little girl.... If it’s only a question of money....”
But the gate-keeper shook his head again.
“No, ma’am, no, thank you kindly. I am not proud, and I would cheerfully accept any offer of help for my little Cecily ... but I will never part from her ... never, not even for an hour!”
“But why?”