dish talk of crystal
palaces and shining pearls. Even now indeed she speaks of things so
marvellous that we know not what to think.

'After some days we asked her once again from whence she came. She
told us that she had been on the sea with her mother, and had fallen
from her arms into the water, nor had she known more until she awoke
under the trees, close to our cottage, so well pleased with the fair
shore that she felt no fear.

'Then we said, "Let us keep the little stranger, and care for her as
we would have cared for our own lost child." We sent for a priest, who
baptized her, giving her the name by which she called herself, though
indeed it seemed no name for a Christian child.

'"Undine," said the priest as he performed the holy rite, while she,
the little one, stood before him gentle and sweet. No sooner, however,
was the service ended than she grew wild, wilful as was her way. For
it is true that my wife has had much trouble with the maiden--'

At that moment the knight interrupted the fisherman.

'Listen,' he cried, 'how the stream roars as it dashes past the
window!'

Together they sprang to the door. The moon had risen, and the knight
and the fisherman saw that the stream which ran from the wood had
burst its banks. It was now rushing wildly along, carrying with it
stones and roots of trees. As they looked, the clouds grew dark and
crept across the face of the moon, the wind rose and lashed the water
of the lake into great waves.

'Undine! Undine!' cried the two men together, but no answer reached
them save the shrieking of the wind among the trees of the forest.

Then, careless of the storm, the fisherman and the knight rushed from
the cottage in search of the maiden.

CHAPTER III

UNDINE IS FOUND

As Huldbrand rushed out into the night, followed by the fisherman, the
storm seemed to rage yet more fiercely. The old man was soon left far
behind in the search for the lost maiden.

The knight, battling bravely with the storm, hastened hither and
thither, but all his efforts were vain. Undine was nowhere to be
found.

And now, as the rain dashed down upon him and the wind hustled him,
Huldbrand grew bewildered. The storm seemed to have changed the
peaceful meadows into a weary wilderness, and even the maiden herself
seemed to flit before him as a phantom spirit of the wind.

Could it all have been but a dream? Had the cottage, the fisherman and
his wife been as unreal as the figures