tform, as she had been wont to do; but when she felt
the waves about her shoulders, she uttered a cry of terror, and grasped
the edge of the canoe with both hands.

"Lift me out, Ludwig! I cannot bear it; I am afraid!"

With a sorrowful heart the little maid took leave of her favorite
element. The hot tears gushed from her eyes, and fell into the water; it
was as if she were bidding an eternal, farewell to her beloved. From
that hour the child became a silent and thoughtful woman.

* * * * *

Then followed the stormy days of autumn, the long evenings, the weeks
and months when nothing could be done but stay in doors and amuse one's
self with books--Dante, Shakspere, Horace. To these were occasionally
added learned folios sent from Stuttgart to Count Ludwig, who seemed to
find his greatest enjoyment in perusing works on philosophy and science.
Meanwhile the communication by letter between the count and the erudite
shepherd of souls in the village was continued.

One day Herr Mercatoris sent to the castle a brochure on which he had
proudly written, "With the compliments of the author." The booklet was
written in Latin, and was an account of the natural wonder which is, to
this day, reckoned among the numerous memorable peculiarities of Lake
Neusiedl,--a human being that lived in the water and ate live fishes.

A little boy who had lost both parents, and had no one to care for him,
had strayed into the morass of the Hansag, and, living there among the
wild animals, had become a wild animal himself, an inhabitant of the
water like the otters, a dumb creature from whose lips issued no human
sound.

The decade of years he had existed in the water had changed his skin to
a thick hide covered with a heavy growth of hair. The phenomenon would
doubtless be accepted by many as a convincing proof that the human being
was really evolved from the wild animal.

Accompanying the description was an engraved portrait of the natural
wonder.

The new owner of Fertoeszeg, Baroness Katharina Landsknechtsschild, had
been told that a strange creature was frightening the village children
who bathed in the lake. She had given orders to some fishermen to catch
the monster, which they had been fortunate enough to do while fishing
for sturgeon. The boy-fish had been taken to the manor, where he had
been properly clothed, and placed in the care of a servant whose task
it was to teach the poor lad to speak, an