maiden with amazement and alarm; she imagined her friend must be
seized with a sudden madness. But from the consistency of her story,
she became more and more convinced that all was true, it so well
agreed with former occurrences, and still more convinced from that
inward feeling with which truth never fails to make itself known to
us. She could not but view it as an extraordinary circumstance that
she was herself now living, as it were, in the midst of one of those
wild tales which she had formerly heard related. She gazed upon
Undine with reverence, but could not keep from a shuddering feeling
which seemed to come between her and her friend; and she could not
but wonder when the knight, at their evening repast, showed himself
so kind and full of love towards a being who appeared to her, after
the discoveries just made, more to resemble a phantom of the spirit-
world than one of the human race.




CHAPTER 7



The writer of this tale, both because it moves his own heart and he
wishes it to move that of others, asks a favour of you, dear reader.
Forgive him if he passes over a considerable space of time in a few
words, and only tells you generally what therein happened. He knows
well that it might be unfolded skilfully, and step by step, how
Huldbrand's heart began to turn from Undine and towards Bertalda--how
Bertalda met the young knight with ardent love, and how they both
looked upon the poor wife as a mysterious being, more to be dreaded