f it must needs be so--my
father said: 'I will not take you with me until you are changed. If you
will venture to come to us alone through the ill-omened forest, that
shall be a proof of your having some regard for us. But come not to me
as a lady; come merely as a fisher-girl.' I do as he bade me, for since
I am abandoned by all the world, I will live and die in solitude, a poor
fisher-girl, with parents equally poor. The forest, indeed, appears
very terrible to me. Horrible spectres make it their haunt, and I am so
fearful. But how can I help it? I have only come here at this early hour
to beg the noble lady of Ringstetten to pardon my unbecoming behaviour
of yesterday. Sweet lady, I have the fullest persuasion that you meant
to do me a kindness, but you were not aware how severely you would
wound me; and then, in my agony and surprise, so many rash and frantic
expressions burst from my lips. Forgive me, ah, forgive me! I am in
truth so unhappy, already. Only consider what I was but yesterday
morning, what I was even at the beginning of your yesterday's festival,
and what I am to-day!"

Her words now became inarticulate, lost in a passionate flow of tears,
while Undine, bitterly weeping with her, fell upon her neck. So powerful
was her emotion, that it was a long time before she could utter a word.
At length she said:

"You shall still go with us to Ringstetten; all shall remain just as
we lately arranged it; but say 'thou' to me again, and do not call me
'noble lady' any more. Consider, we were changed for each other when
we were children; even then we were united by a like fate, and we will
strengthen this union with such close affection as no human power shall
dissolve. Only first of all you must go with us to Ringstetten. How we
shall share all things as sisters, we can talk of after we arrive."

Bertalda looked up to Huldbrand with timid inquiry. He pitied her in her
affliction, took her hand, and begged her tenderly to entrust herself to
him and his wife.

"We will send a message to your parents," continued he, "giving them the
reason why you have not come;"--and he would have added more about his
worthy friends of the peninsula, when, perceiving that Bertalda shrank
in distress at the mention of them, he refrained. He took her under
the arm, lifted her first into the carriage, then Undine, and was soon
riding blithely beside them; so persevering was he, too, in urging
forward their driver, that in a short t