ross the water.

"So much the better," said the fisherman, "but now make haste, and bring
her over to me upon firm ground."

To this, however, Undine would by no means consent. She declared
that she would rather enter the wild forest itself with the beautiful
stranger, than return to the cottage where she was so thwarted in her
wishes, and from which the knight would soon or late go away. Then,
throwing her arms round Huldbrand, she sang the following verse with the
warbling sweetness of a bird:

"A rill would leave its misty vale,
And fortunes wild explore,
Weary at length it reached the main,
And sought its vale no more."

The old fisherman wept bitterly at her song, but his emotion seemed to
awaken little or no sympathy in her. She kissed and caressed her new
friend, who at last said to her: "Undine, if the distress of the old man
does not touch your heart, it cannot but move mine. We ought to return
to him."

She opened her large blue eyes upon him in amazement, and spoke at last
with a slow and doubtful accent, "If you think so, it is well, all is
right to me which you think right. But the old man over there must first
give me his promise that he will allow you, without objection, to
relate what you saw in the wood, and--well, other things will settle
themselves."

"Come--only come!" cried the fisherman to her, unable to utter another
word. At the same time he stretched his arms wide over the current
towards her, and to give her assurance that he would do what she
required, nodded his head. This motion caused his white hair to fall
strangely over his face, and Huldbrand could not but remember the
nodding white man of the forest. Without allowing anything, however, to
produce in him the least confusion, the young knight took the beautiful
girl in his arms, and bore her across the narrow channel which the
stream had torn away between her little island and the solid shore.
The old man fell upon Undine's neck, and found it impossible either to
express his joy or to kiss her enough; even the ancient dame came up and
embraced the recovered girl most cordially. Every word of censure was
carefully avoided; the more so, indeed, as even Undine, forgetting her
waywardness, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with caresses and the
prattle of tenderness.

When at length the excess of their joy at recovering their child had
subsided, morning had already dawned, shining upon the waters of the
lake