been secured from the
mischief of the threatening water-spirits. But the knight and the
fisherman and all the guests felt as if the chief personage were
still lacking at the feast, and that this chief personage could be
none other than the loved and gentle Undine. Whenever a door opened,
the eyes of all were involuntarily turned in that direction, and if
it was nothing but the butler with new dishes, or the cup-bearer
with a flask of still richer wine, they would look down again sadly,
and the flashes of wit and merriment which had passed to and fro,
would be extinguished by sad remembrances. The bride was the most
thoughtless of all, and therefore the most happy; but even to her it
sometimes seemed strange that she should be sitting at the head of
the table, wearing a green wreath and gold-embroidered attire, while
Undine was lying at the bottom of the Danube, a cold and stiff
corpse, or floating away with the current into the mighty ocean.
For, ever since her father had spoken of something of the sort, his
words were ever ringing in her ear, and this day especially they
were not inclined to give place to other thoughts.

The company dispersed early in the evening, not broken up by the
bridegroom himself, but sadly and gloomily by the joyless mood of
the guests and their forebodings of evil. Bertalda retired with her
maidens, and the knight with his attendants; but at this mournful
festival there was no gay, laughing train of bridesmaids and
bridesmen.

Bertalda wished to arouse more cheerful thoughts; she ordered a
splendid ornament of jewels which Huldbrand had given her, together
with rich apparel and veils, to be spread out before her, in order
that from these latter she might select the brightest and most
beautiful for her morning attire. Her attendants were delighted at
the opportunity of expressing their good wishes to their young
mistress, not failing at the same time to extol the beauty of the
bride in the most lively terms. They were more and more absorbed in
these considerations, till Bertalda at length, looking in a mirror,
said with a sigh: "Ah, but don't you see plainly how freckled I am
growing here at the side of my neck?"

They looked at her throat, and found the freckles as their fair
mistress had said, but they called them beauty-spots, and mere tiny
blemishes only, tending to enhance the whiteness of her delicate
skin. Bertalda shook her head and asserted that a spot was always a
defect.

"An