one of the powerful dukes of this country. She too, I observed, was
gazing at me, and the consequences were such as we young knights are
wont to experience; whatever success in riding I might have had
before, I was now favoured with still better fortune. That evening I
was Bertalda's partner in the dance, and I enjoyed the same
distinction during the remainder of the festival."

A sharp pain in his left hand, as it hung carelessly beside him, here
interrupted Huldbrand's relation, and drew his eye to the part
affected. Undine had fastened her pearly teeth, and not without some
keenness too, upon one of his fingers, appearing at the same time
very gloomy and displeased. On a sudden, however, she looked up in
his eyes with an expression of tender melancholy, and whispered
almost inaudibly,--

"It is all your own fault."

She then covered her face; and the knight, strangely embarrassed and
thoughtful, went on with his story.

"This lady, Bertalda, of whom I spoke, is of a proud and wayward
spirit. The second day I saw her she pleased me by no means so much
as she had the first, and the third day still less. But I continued
about her because she showed me more favour than she did any other
knight, and it so happened that I playfully asked her to give me one
of her gloves. 'When you have entered the haunted forest all alone,'
said she; 'when you have explored its wonders, and brought me a full
account of them, the glove is yours.' As to getting her glove, it
was of no importance to me whatever, but the word had been spoken,
and no honourable knight would permit himself to be urged to such a