dolf's eyes were trained by hunting. He searched the woods carefully
round that place, and peered behind every bush and tree; but nothing was
to be seen. His heart beat fast, this was a real adventure. Surely if a
wood-nymph or fairy were to appear to him here in this lonely forest, it
would hardly seem strange.

So he summoned up his courage and addressed the wood-spirit as he
thought. "Who are you? Where are you?" he said. "Be you wood-sprite or
fairy, I fear you not. I am ready to do your bidding; for your sweet
voice and your distress have touched my heart: appear, O appear!"

Babette (for of course it was she) trembled with excitement. This was
really a chance of escape. She had seen the young huntsman from her
perch in the pear-tree, and had made up the impromptu song. She thought
it was even more original than her cooking. Now she answered eagerly:

"Alas it is impossible for me to appear unto you; for I am as invisible
as if I had on Siegfried's cap of darkness. I was stolen by a horrid
wizard when I was walking in the forest with my nurse. Surely you have
heard of me?"

Now of course Sir Rudolf had heard of Babette,--the story of whose
kidnapping was told all over the country, and became more wonderful with
every telling. Some people said that the devil himself had carried her
off; this was really unkind; for Babette, though lively, was not a bad
girl, as we know.

"Are you Babette, the witch's granddaughter?" said the young man
hesitatingly.

"O don't, don't say that, I want to forget that!" said Babette, and he
heard a slight sob. "I am the adopted daughter of Count Karl of
Eppenhain, and O, a wicked wizard holds me here invisible under a
powerful spell. Just think," said Babette crying again, "I slave for him
all day and cook and do all the house-work, and never a kind word or
look do I get from him in return. It is a shame. O dear! O dear!"

"Please don't cry, I really cannot bear it, when I cannot even see you
to comfort you," said Rudolf tenderly. "Tell me what to do! Shall I
shoot the wizard?"

"No, of course not; besides, he is invisible, too. You might walk
through us all, and notice no difference, so subtle is the spell," said
Babette.

Rudolf was one of those specially gifted mortals in whom the sense of
things unseen is as clearly developed as the senses of sight and
hearing. He never doubted Babette's reality, though I think a more
up-to-date youth would certainly have done so, and have