"A rill would leave its misty vale,
And fortunes wild explore,
Weary at length it reached the main,
And sought its vale no more."


The old fisherman wept bitterly at her song, but his emotion seemed
to awaken little or no sympathy in her. She kissed and caressed her
new friend, who at last said to her: "Undine, if the distress of the
old man does not touch your heart, it cannot but move mine. We ought
to return to him."

She opened her large blue eyes upon him in amazement, and spoke at
last with a slow and doubtful accent, "If you think so, it is well,
all is right to me which you think right. But the old man over there
must first give me his promise that he will allow you, without
objection, to relate what you saw in the wood, and--well, other
things will settle themselves."

"Come--only come!" cried the fisherman to her, unable to utter
another word. At the same time he stretched his arms wide over the
current towards her, and to give her assurance that he would do what
she required, nodded his head. This motion caused his white hair to
fall strangely over his face, and Huldbrand could not but remember
the nodding white man of the forest. Without allowing anything,
however, to produce in him the least confusion, the young knight took
the beautiful girl in his arms, and bore her across the narrow
channel which the stream had torn away between her little island and
the solid shore. The old man fell upon Undine's neck, and found it