"We have no need of your fish," said Huldbrand, accosting her; "we
are this moment setting out on a journey."

Upon this the fisher-girl began to weep bitterly; and then it was
that the young couple first perceived it was Bertalda. They
immediately returned with her to their apartment, when she informed
them that, owing to her unfeeling and violent conduct of the
preceding day, the duke and duchess had been so displeased with her,
as entirely to withdraw from her their protection, though not before
giving her a generous portion. The fisherman, too, had received a
handsome gift, and had, the evening before, set out with his wife for
his peninsula.

"I would have gone with them," she pursued, "but the old fisherman,
who is said to be my father--"

"He is, in truth, your father, Bertalda," said Undine, interrupting
her. "See, the stranger whom you took for the master of the water-
works gave me all the particulars. He wished to dissuade me from
taking you with me to Castle Ringstetten, and therefore disclosed to
me the whole mystery."

"Well then," continued Bertalda, "my father--if it must needs be so--
my father said: 'I will not take you with me until you are changed.
If you will venture to come to us alone through the ill-omened
forest, that shall be a proof of your having some regard for us. But
come not to me as a lady; come merely as a fisher-girl.' I do as he
bade me, for since I am abandoned by all the world, I will live and
die in solitude, a poor fisher-girl, with parents equally poor. The