Walpurga passed her hand over her face, as if to brush away a spider
that had been creeping there. The Queen doesn't speak of her "child" or
her "son," but only of "the Crown Prince."

Walpurga answered:--

"Yes, quite well, thank God! That is, I couldn't hear him, and I only
wanted to say that I'd like to act towards the--" she could not say "the
Prince"--"that is, towards him, as I'd do with my own child. We began on
the very first day. My mother taught me that. Such a child has a will of
its own from the very start, and it won't do to give way to it. It won't
do to take it from the cradle, or to feed it, whenever it pleases; there
ought to be regular times for all those things. It'll soon get used to
that, and it won't harm it either, to let it cry once in a while. On the
contrary, that expands the chest."

"Does he cry?" asked the Queen.

The infant answered the question for itself, for it at once began to cry
most lustily.

"Take him and quiet him," begged the Queen.

The King entered the apartment before the child had stopped crying.

"He will have a good voice of command," said he, kissing the Queen's
hand.

Walpurga quieted the child, and she and Mademoiselle Kramer were sent