thrice more."

"As my lord wills," replied Undine, humbly. "It is only that the old
people will, at all events, part from me with pain, and when they
now for the first time perceive the true soul within me, and how I
can now heartily love and honor, their feeble eyes will be dimmed
with plentiful tears. At present they consider my quietness and
gentleness of no better promise than before, like the calmness of
the lake when the air is still; and, as matters now are, they will
soon learn to cherish a flower or a tree as they have cherished me.
Do not, therefore, let me reveal to them this newly-bestowed and
loving heart, just at the moment when they must lose it for this
world; and how could I conceal it, if we remain longer together?"

Huldbrand conceded the point; he went to the aged people and talked
with them over the journey, which he proposed to undertake
immediately. The holy father offered to accompany the young married
pair, and, after a hasty farewell, he and the knight assisted the
beautiful bride to mount her horse, and walked with rapid step by
her side over the dry channel of the forest-stream into the wood
beyond. Undine wept silently but bitterly, and the old people gave
loud expression to their grief. It seemed as if they had a
presentiment of all they were now losing in their foster-child.

The three travellers had reached in silence the densest shades of
the forest. It must have been a fair sight, under that green canopy
of leaves, to see Undine's lovely form, as she sat on her noble and
richly ornamented steed, with the venerable priest in the white garb
of his order on one side of her, and on the other the blooming young
knight in his gay and splendid attire, with his sword at his girdle.
Huldbrand had no eyes but for his beautiful wife Undine, who had
dried her tears, had no eyes but for him, and they soon fell into a
mute, voiceless converse of glance and gesture, from which they were
only roused at length by the low talking of the reverend father with
a fourth traveller, who in the mean while had joined them
unobserved.

He wore a white garment almost resembling the dress of the priests
order, except that his hood hung low over his face, and his whole
attire floated round him in such vast folds that he was obliged
every moment to gather it up, and throw it over his arm, or dispose
of it in some way, and yet it did not in the least seem to impede
his movements. When the young couple first perc