pain
from the mention of their name, and he therefore refrained from
saying more.

He then assisted her first into the carriage, Undine followed her;
and he mounted his horse and trotted merrily by the side of them,
urging the driver at the same time to hasten his speed, so that very
soon they were beyond the confines of the imperial city and all its
sad remembrances; and now the ladies began to enjoy the beautiful
country through which their road lay.

After a journey of some days, they arrived one exquisite evening, at
castle Ringstetten. The young knight had much to hear from his
overseers and vassals, so that Undine and Bertalda were left alone.

They both repaired to the ramparts of the fortress, and were
delighted with the beautiful landscape which spread far and wide
through fertile Swabia.

Presently a tall man approached them, greeting them respectfully,
and Bertalda fancied she saw a resemblance to the master of the
fountain in the imperial city. Still more unmistakable grew the
likeness, when Undine angrily and almost threateningly waved him
off, and he retreated with hasty steps and shaking head, as he had
done before, and disappeared into a neighboring copse. Undine,
however, said:

"Don't be afraid, dear Bertalda, this time the hateful master of the
fountain shall do you no harm." And then she told her the whole
story in detail, and who she was herself, and how Bertalda had been
taken away from the fisherman and his wife, and Undine had gone to
them. The girl was at first terrified with this relation; she
imagined her friend must be seized with sudden madness, but she
became more convinced that all was true, for Undine's story was so
connected, and fitted so well with former occurrences, and still
more she had that inward feeling with which truth never fails to
make itself known to us. It seemed strange to her that she was now
herself living, as it were, in the midst of one of those fairy tales
to which she had formerly only listened.

She gazed upon Undine with reverence, but she could not resist a
sense of dread that seemed to come between her and her friend, and
at their evening repast she could not but wonder how the knight
could behave so lovingly and kindly toward a being who appeared to
her, since the discovery she had just made, more of a phantom than a
human being.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOW THEY LIVED AT CASTLE RINGSTETTEN.

The writer of this story, both because it moves his own h