the large
living-room, where a flock of girls sit around the fire with their
spinning-wheels. Beside the maps and pictures of nautical interest
forming the natural decoration of a sea-captain's house, there
hangs on the wall the picture of a pale black-bearded man, dressed
in the Spanish fashion of years long gone.

The girls are spinning busily, singing while they work. They are
the sweethearts of the lads on Daland's ship, and their song is of
sailors at sea who are thinking of maidens at home, and if diligent
turning of the spinning-wheel might influence the wind--oh, but
they would speedily be back in harbour!

One only of the young girls in the room is not working; Senta,
letting her wheel stand idle, leans back abstractedly in a great
armchair, with her eyes fixed upon the picture of the pale man.
Her old nurse, Mary, who spins diligently herself and keeps the
rest at their task, chides her, not very severely, for her idleness.
The girls in their song have been felicitating themselves that if
they are zealous at their spinning their lovers will give them
the golden earnings they bring home from the south. "You naughty
child," Mary says to Senta, at the end of the song, "if you do
not spin, you will receive no present from your _Schatz!_" Senta's
companions laugh at this. "There is no need for her to hurry. Her
sweetheart is not out at Sea. He brings home no gold, he brings home
game. Everyone knows in what the fortune of a huntsman consists!"
Senta does not stir; it is doubtful if she have heard. Without
removing her eyes from the picture of the pallid man, she hums
softly to herself certain fragment of old ballad. "Look at her!"
the nurse takes fuller account of her attitude and abstraction;
"Look at her! Always in front of that picture! Do you intend to
dream away your whole young life before that portrait?" Senta answers
gently, still without taking her eyes from the pale face: "Why
did you tell me who he is, and relate his story?... The unhappy
soul!" At the heavily burdened sigh upon which she utters the last
words, "God have you in His care!" exclaims Mary, vaguely troubled.
But the girls, who are in merry mood, laugh again. "Why, why, what
is that we hear? She sighs for the pale man! There you see what a
picture can do. She is in love. Please Heaven no mischief result!
Erik is somewhat hot of temper. Please God he do no damage! Say
not a word, else, aflame with wrath, he may shoot the rival from
the wal