reviled the old people; and even such offensive words as "deceiver,
bribed and perjured impostors," burst from her lips.

The aged wife of the fisherman then said to herself, in a low voice:
"Ah, my God, she has become wicked! and yet I feel in my heart that
she is my child."

The old fisherman had meanwhile folded his hands, and offered up a
silent prayer that she might NOT be his daughter.

Undine, faint and pale as death, turned from the parents to Bertalda,
from Bertalda to the parents. She was suddenly cast dawn from all
that heaven of happiness in which she had been dreaming, and plunged
into an agony of terror and disappointment, which she had never known
even in dreams.

"Have you, then, a soul? Have you indeed a soul, Bertalda?" she
cried again and again to her angry friend, as if with vehement effort
she would arouse her from a sudden delirium or some distracting dream
of night, and restore her to recollection.

But when Bertalda became every moment only more and more enraged--
when the disappointed parents began to weep aloud--and the company,
with much warmth of dispute, were espousing opposite sides--she
begged, with such earnestness and dignity, for the liberty of
speaking in this her husband's hall, that all around her were in an
instant hushed to silence. She then advanced to the upper end of the
table, where, both humbled and haughty, Bertalda had seated herself,
and, while every eye was fastened upon her, spoke in the following
manner:--