incess who
sat next to the Duke. But Undine bent forward to the door, her eyes
overflowing with the happiest tears. "Where are they, the poor anxious
parents?" said she; and the old Fisherman and his wife came out from
the crowd of bystanders. They turned an inquiring eye upon Undine, and
then upon the handsome lady whom they were to call daughter. "There
she is," faltered the delighted Undine, and the aged couple caught
their long-lost child in their arms, thanking God, and weeping aloud.

Affrighted and enraged, Bertalda shrank from their embrace. It was
more than her proud spirit could bear, to be thus degraded; at a
moment, too, when she was fully expecting an increase of splendour,
and fancy was showering pearls and diadems upon her head. She
suspected that her rival had contrived this, on purpose to mortify her
before Huldbrand and all the world. She reviled both Undine and the
old people; the hateful words, "Treacherous creature! and bribed
wretches!" burst from her lips. The old woman said in a half whisper,
"Dear me, she has grown up a wicked woman; and yet my heart tells me
she is my own child." The Fisherman has clasped his hands, and was
praying silently that this girl might not prove to be theirs indeed.
Undine, pale as death, looked from Bertalda to the parents, from the
parents to Bertalda, and could not recover the rude shock she had
sustained, at being plunged from all her happy dreams into a state of
fear and misery, such as she had never known before.

"Have you a soul? Have you indeed a soul, Bertalda?" she exclaimed
once or twice, trying to recall her angry friend to reason, from what
she took for a fit of madness, or a kind of nightmare. But Bertalda
only stormed the louder; the repulsed parents wailed piteously, and
the company began to dispute angrily and to side with one or the
other; when Undine stepped forward, and asked with so much earnest
gentleness to be listened to in her husband's house that all was
hushed in a moment. She took the place which Bertalda had left, at
the head of the table, and as she stood there in modest dignity, the
eyes of all turned toward her, and she said: "You all that cast such
angry looks at each other, and so cruelly spoil the joy of my poor
feast, alas! I little knew what your foolish angry passions were, and
I think I never shall understand you. What I had hoped would do so
much good has led to all this; but that is not my fault, it is your
own doing, believe