e death of him who has taken another to wife."

"That I cannot do," laughed Undine in return; "I have sealed up the
fountain securely against myself and my race."

"But suppose he should leave his castle," said Kuhleborn, "or should
have the fountain opened again! for he thinks little enough of these
things."

"It is just for that reason," said Undine, still smiling amid her
tears, "it is just for that reason, that he is now hovering in
spirit over the Mediterranean Sea, and is dreaming of this
conversation of ours as a warning. I have intentionally arranged it
so."

Kuhleborn, furious with rage, looked up at the knight, threatened,
stamped with his feet, and then swift as an arrow shot under the
waves. It seemed as if he were swelling in his fury to the size of a
whale. Again the swans began to sing, to flap their wings, and to
fly. It seemed to the knight as if he were soaring away over
mountains and streams, and that he at length reached the castle
Ringstetten, and awoke on his couch.

He did, in reality, awake upon his couch, and his squire coming in
at that moment informed him that Father Heilmann was still lingering
in the neighborhood; that he had met him the night before in the
forest, in a hut which he had formed for himself of the branches of
trees, and covered with moss and brushwood. To the question what he
was doing here, since he would not give the nuptial blessing, he had
answered: "There are other blessings besides those at the nuptial
altar, and though I have not gone to the wedding, it may be that I
shall be at another solemn ceremony. We must be ready for all
things. Besides, marrying and mourning are not so unlike, and every
one not wilfully blinded must see that well."

The knight placed various strange constructions upon these words,
and upon his dream, but it is very difficult to break off a thing
which a man has once regarded as certain, and so everything remained
as it had been arranged.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW THE KNIGHT HULDBRAND IS MARRIED.

If I were to tell you how the marriage-feast passed at castle
Ringstetten, it would seem to you as if you saw a heap of bright and
pleasant things, but a gloomy veil of mourning spread over them all,
the dark hue of which would make the splendor of the whole look less
like happiness than a mockery of the emptiness of all earthly joys.
It was not that any spectral apparitions disturbed the festive
company, for we know that the castle had