aid at last, sighing. "But the castle
fountain is covered, from which I formerly used to have that precious
water, so purifying to the skin. Oh, had I this evening only a single
flask of it!"

"Is that all?" cried an alert waiting-maid, laughing as she glided out
of the apartment.

"She will not be so foolish," said Bertalda, well pleased and
surprised, "as to cause the stone cover of the fountain to be taken
off this very evening?" That instant they heard the tread of men
already passing along the court-yard, and could see from the window
where the officious maiden was leading them directly up to the
fountain, and that they carried levers and other instruments on their
shoulders.

"It is certainly my will," said Bertalda with a smile, "if it does not
take them too long." And pleased with the thought that a word from her
was now sufficient to accomplish what had formerly been refused with a
painful reproof, she looked down upon their operations in the bright
moonlit castle court.

The men raised the enormous stone with an effort; some one of the
number indeed would occasionally sigh, when he recollected that they
were destroying the work of their former beloved mistress. Their
labor, however, was much lighter than they had expected. It seemed as
if some power from within the fountain itself aided them in raising
the stone.

"It appears," said the workmen to one another in astonishment, "as if
the confined water had become a springing fountain." And the stone
rose more and more, and almost without the assistance of the
workpeople, rolled slowly down upon the pavement with a hollow sound.
But an appearance from the opening of the fountain filled them with
awe, as it rose like a white column of water; at first they imagined
it really to be a fountain, until they perceived the rising form to be
a pale female, veiled in white. She wept bitterly, raised her hands
above her head, wringing them sadly as with slow and solemn step she
moved toward the castle. The servants shrank back, and fled from the
spring, while the bride, pale and motionless with horror, stood with
her maidens at the window. When the figure had now come close beneath
their room, it looked up to them sobbing, and Bertalda thought she
recognized through the veil the pale features of Undine. But the
mourning form passed on, sad, reluctant, and lingering, as if going to
the place of execution. Bertalda screamed to her maids to call the
knight; not one of