_thee_, hast thou courage to address her?'

"'Father, a lovely form shall hardly frighten me,' said Bolko, with a
smile.

"'I exact thy promise,' said Hubert quickly. 'From this day forward,
shun the Gold Spring no more. Thou art a lover of nature and her
creations. I have seen thee for hours lost in admiration of the form
and colour of choice butterflies. That spot abounds in the rarest.
Thou mayst find them at any hour of the day. It would seem, indeed,
that the delicate insects of peace had retreated thither to find
security from the tumult of busy money-lusting men. The realm of the
Moor Maiden is the paradise of these tenderest of winged beauties.
Bolko, thou wilt visit them!'

"The baron gave his right hand to his preceptor without uttering one
word of assurance or affirmation. Hubert had done. He left his young
lord to his own meditations.

* * * * *

"Bolko passed some days in restless suspense. Now he was a wanderer in
the woods, now a prisoner in the apartment that looked upon the moor,
watching intently during the day every slight phenomenon that arose
there. The morning and evening mist and the yellow vapour of noon were
his best discoveries. Not a human being approached a place shunned, as
it appeared, by every living thing. The conversation, however, with
Hubert had proved a secret spur to him, and he found no rest until he
visited the dreary moor in person. It was late in the afternoon, when,
furnished with a hunting-knife and insect-net, he set out on his
adventure. Bolko had never before visited the spring, and his surprise
was naturally great when he beheld the peculiar condition of the soil
around him. Along the entire surface of the notorious moor--and its
extent was considerable--there appeared a singularly-coloured sedge.
It was not red, or yellow, or brown, but a mixture of all three, and
it marked, by the sharpest line, the confines of the moor from the
green turf of the remaining country. At every step, the ground,
although very strong, yielded, as it threatening to give way. Towards
the centre of the moor there was an elevation surrounded with bushes.
This was the source of the silvery water that took its serpentine
course along the moor, and through the luxuriant woods beyond.

"Bolko made his way towards this point, and, reaching it, his eye
rested with delight upon the basin and its border of golden granite.
The water ascended noiselessly from its immeas