eople
assembled there.

"You are pleased to see us, are you not?" they said. "We have heard of
the fame of your spinning-evenings, and have come from a far country to
take part in them. You shall see how we can spin."

"Very gratifying for us, I am sure," murmured the officiating president
of the club.

"Now do not let us disturb you, you were telling stories I believe as
we entered," said Lenore, who, being the most human, took the lead in
the conversation.

But no one dared to open his mouth, even those who had been the most
eager to narrate wild tales before, seemed stricken with dumbness now.

"You could tell us a story, I believe," she said, turning to Hermann,
who could only shake his head. "Then I must tell one myself," she said
with a little sigh. She poured forth an extraordinary story to which the
peasants listened open-mouthed, the tale of a terrible doom that
overtook a faithless lover.

"A mortal man," she said, "had made love to a beautiful nixy, and won
her affection in return. But because she was not human, he did not think
of marrying her, but became engaged to a village maiden who was good and
sweet, if not so beautiful as the nixy. But the nixy had her revenge.
She swam under the bridge where the little river ran through the fields,
and one day as the two were walking in the dewy meadows, she caused the
waters to rise suddenly in a great flood, and tore her lover away from
his human bride down with her in the stream, choking him under the water
till he was dead. Then she sat with his head on her lap, and stroked his
beautiful dark curls, and wept until she dissolved in tears, and became
part of the water, which has been slightly salt from that day. The
village maiden was married to a rich old peasant not long afterwards; so
much for human fidelity," said Lenore, fixing her sad eyes on Hermann.

"He well-deserved his fate," said Hermann, "who chose the lesser when he
might have had the greater love."

"I think the nixy was a mean, wicked thing," said a young girl, almost a
child, called Brigitte, with soft, dark eyes, and a sweet expression on
her face. "She could not really have cared for her lover, or she would
have wanted him to be happy with the village girl, as she knew she could
not marry him herself."

"Never," said Hermann, excitedly, whose blood was coursing like fire in
his veins, "better death in the arms of the beloved, than a contented
life with lower aims!"

The men laughed.