med to her as if her
rival had contrived all this on purpose to humble her before Huldbrand
and the whole world. She reproached Undine; she reviled the old
people; and even such offensive words as "deceiver, bribed and perjured
impostors," burst from her lips.

The aged wife of the fisherman then said to herself, in a low voice:
"Ah, my God, she has become wicked! and yet I feel in my heart that she
is my child."

The old fisherman had meanwhile folded his hands, and offered up a
silent prayer that she might NOT be his daughter.

Undine, faint and pale as death, turned from the parents to Bertalda,
from Bertalda to the parents. She was suddenly cast dawn from all that
heaven of happiness in which she had been dreaming, and plunged into an
agony of terror and disappointment, which she had never known even in
dreams.

"Have you, then, a soul? Have you indeed a soul, Bertalda?" she cried
again and again to her angry friend, as if with vehement effort she
would arouse her from a sudden delirium or some distracting dream of
night, and restore her to recollection.

But when Bertalda became every moment only more and more enraged--when
the disappointed parents began to weep aloud--and the company, with much
warmth of dispute, were espousing opposite sides--she begged, with
such earnestness and dignity, for the liberty of speaking in this
her husband's hall, that all around her were in an instant hushed to
silence. She then advanced to the upper end of the table, where, both
humbled and haughty, Bertalda had seated herself, and, while every eye
was fastened upon her, spoke in the following manner:--

"My friends, you appear dissatisfied and disturbed; and you are
interrupting, with your strife, a festivity I had hoped would bring joy
to you and to me. Ah! I knew nothing of your heartless ways of thinking;
and never shall understand them: I am not to blame for the mischief this
disclosure has done. Believe me, little as you may imagine this to be
the case, it is wholly owing to yourselves. One word more, therefore, is
all I have to add; but this is one that must be spoken:--I have
uttered nothing but truth. Of the certainty of the fact, I give you the
strongest assurance. No other proof can I or will I produce, but this
I will affirm in the presence of God. The person who gave me this
information was the very same who decoyed the infant Bertalda into the
water, and who, after thus taking her from her parents, placed her o