had lived in
the moon. She will speak of golden castles, of crystal roofs, and I
can't tell what beside. The only thing she has told us clearly, is,
that as she was sailing on the lake with her mother, she fell into the
water, and when she recovered her senses found herself lying under
these trees, in safety and comfort, upon our pretty shore.

"So now we had a serious, anxious charge thrown upon us. To keep
and bring up the foundling, instead of our poor drowned child--that
was soon resolved upon but who should tell us if she had yet been
baptised or no? She knew how not how to answer the question. That she
was one of God's creatures, made for His glory and service, that much
she knew; and anything that would glorify and please Him, she was
willing to have done. So my wife and I said to each other: 'If she has
never been baptised, there is no doubt it should be done; and if she
was, better do too much than too little, in a matter of such
consequence.' We therefore began to seek a good name for the child.
Dorothea seemed to us the best; for I had once heard that meant God's
gift; and she had indeed been sent us by Him as a special blessing, to
comfort us in our misery. But she would not hear of that name. She
said Undine was what her parents used to call her, and Undine she
would still be. That, I thought, sounded like a heathen name, and
occurred in no Calendar; and I took counsel with a priest in the town
about it. He also objected to the name Undine; and at my earnest
request, came home with me, through the dark forest, in order to
baptise her. The little creature stood before us, looking so gay and
charming in her holiday clothes, that the priest's heart warmed toward
her; and what with coaxing and wilfulness, she got the better of him,
so that he clean forgot all the objections he had thought of to the
name Undine. She was therefore so christened and behaved particularly
well and decently during the sacred rite, wild and unruly as she had
always been before. For, what my wife said just now was too true--we
have indeed found her the wildest little fairy! If I were to tell you
all--"

Here the Knight interrupted the Fisherman, to call his attention to a
sound of roaring waters, which he had noticed already in the pauses of
the old man's speech, and which now rose in fury as it rushed past the
windows. They both ran to the door. By the light of the newly risen
moon, they saw the brook which gushed out of the forest