half rose, and she threw her arms around his neck to draw him gently
down upon the soft seat by her side.

"Here you shall tell me your story, my beautiful friend," she
breathed in a low whisper; "here the cross old people cannot disturb
us; and, besides, our roof of leaves here will make quite as good a
shelter as their poor cottage."

"It is heaven itself," cried Huldbrand; and folding her in his arms,
he kissed the lovely girl with fervour.

The old fisherman, meantime, had come to the margin of the stream,
and he shouted across, "Why, how is this, sir knight! I received you
with the welcome which one true-hearted man gives to another; and now
you sit there caressing my foster-child in secret, while you suffer
me in my anxiety to wander through the night in quest of her."

"Not till this moment did I find her myself, old father," cried the
knight across the water.

"So much the better," said the fisherman, "but now make haste, and
bring her over to me upon firm ground."

To this, however, Undine would by no means consent. She declared
that she would rather enter the wild forest itself with the beautiful
stranger, than return to the cottage where she was so thwarted in her
wishes, and from which the knight would soon or late go away. Then,
throwing her arms round Huldbrand, she sang the following verse with
the warbling sweetness of a bird: