tten.

Already had the stranger, while they were in the midst of their talk,
heard at times a splash against the little low window, as if some one
were dashing water against it. The old man, every time he heard the
noise, knit his brows with vexation; but at last, when the whole sweep
of a shower came pouring like a torrent against the panes, and bubbling
through the decayed frame into the room, he started up indignant, rushed
to the window, and cried with a threatening voice--

"Undine! will you never leave off these fooleries?--not even to-day,
when we have a stranger knight with us in the cottage?"

All without now became still, only a low laugh was just audible, and
the fisherman said, as he came back to his seat, "You will have the
goodness, my honoured guest, to pardon this freak, and it may be a
multitude more; but she has no thought of evil or of any harm. This
mischievous Undine, to confess the truth, is our adopted daughter, and
she stoutly refuses to give over this frolicsome childishness of hers,
although she has already entered her eighteenth year. But in spite of
this, as I said before, she is at heart one of the very best children in
the world."

"YOU may say so," broke in the old lady, shaking her head; "you can give
a better account of her than I can. When you return home from fishing,
or from selling your fish in the city, you may think her frolics very
delightful, but to have her dancing about you the whole day long, and
never from morning to night to hear her speak one word of sense; and
then as she grows older, instead of having any help from her in the
family, to find her a continual cause of anxiety, lest her wild humours
should completely ruin us, that is quite another thing, and enough at
last to weary out the patience even of a saint."

"Well, well," replied the master of the house with a smile, "you have
your trials with Undine, and I have mine with the lake. The lake often
beats down my dams, and breaks the meshes of my nets, but for all that I
have a strong affection for it, and so have you, in spite of your mighty
crosses and vexations, for our graceful little child. Is it not true?"

"One cannot be very angry with her," answered the old lady, as she gave
her husband an approving smile.

That instant the door flew open, and a fair girl, of wondrous beauty,
sprang laughing in, and said, "You have only been making a mock of me,
father; for where now is the guest you mentioned?"

The