nished the girl to
stand up and behave herself and to go to her work. Undine, however,
without making any answer drew a little footstool close to
Huldbrand's chair, sat down upon it with her spinning, and said
pleasantly: "I will work here." The old man did as parents are wont
to do with spoiled children. He affected to observe nothing of
Undine's naughtiness and was beginning to talk of something else.
But this the girl would not let him do; she said: "I have asked our
charming guest whence he comes, and he has not yet answered me."

"I come from the forest, you beautiful little vision," returned
Huldbrand; and she went on to say:--

"Then you must tell me how you came there, for it is usually so
feared, and what marvellous adventures you met with in it, for it is
impossible to escape without something of the sort."

Huldbrand felt a slight shudder at this remembrance, and looked
involuntarily toward the window, for it seemed to him as if one of
the strange figures he had encountered in the forest were grinning
in there; but he saw nothing but the deep dark night, which had now
shrouded everything without. Upon this he composed himself and was
on the point of beginning his little history, when the old man
interrupted him by saying: "Not so, sir knight! this is no fit hour
for such things." Undine, however, sprang angrily from her little
stool, and standing straight before the fisherman with her fair arms
fixed in her sides, she exclaimed: "He shall not tell his story,
father? He shall not? but it is my will. He shall! He shall in spite
of you!" and thus saying she stamped her pretty little foot
vehemently on the floor, but she did it all with such a comically
graceful air that Huldbrand now felt his gaze almost more riveted
upon her in her anger than before in her gentleness.

The restrained wrath of the old man, on the contrary, burst forth
violently. He severely reproved Undine's disobedience and unbecoming
behavior to the stranger, and his good old wife joined with him
heartily. Undine quickly retorted: "If you want to chide me, and
won't do what I wish, then sleep alone in your old smoky hut!" and
swift as an arrow she flew from the room, and fled into the dark
night.

CHAPTER II.

IN WHAT WAY UNDINE HAD COME TO THE FISHERMAN

Huldbrand and the fisherman sprang from their seats and were on the
point of following the angry girl. Before they reached the cottage
door, however, Undine had long vanishe