“Shall we, then, so early as to-day, begin our journey?  Why should we?  It is probable that abroad in the world we shall find no days more delightful than those we have spent in this green isle so secret and so secure.  Let us yet see the sun go down here two or three times more.”

“Just as my lord wills,” replied Undine meekly.  “Only we must remember, that my foster-parents will, at all events, see me depart with pain; and should they now, for the first time, discover the true soul in me, and how fervently I can now love and honour them, their feeble eyes would surely become blind with weeping.  As yet they consider my present quietness and gentleness as of no better promise than they were formerly—­like the calm of the lake just while the air remains tranquil—­and they will learn soon to cherish a little tree or flower as they have cherished me.  Let me not, then, make known to them this newly bestowed, this loving heart, at the very moment they must lose it for this world; and how could I conceal what I have gained, if we continued longer together?”

Huldbrand yielded to her representation, and went to the aged couple to confer with them respecting his journey, on which he proposed to set out that very hour.  The priest offered himself as a companion to the young married pair; and, after taking a short farewell, he held the bridle, while the knight lifted his beautiful wife upon his horse; and with rapid steps they crossed the dry channel with her toward the forest.  Undine wept in silent but intense emotion; the old people, as she moved away, were more clamorous in the expression of their grief.  They appeared to feel, at the moment of separation, all that they were losing in their affectionate foster-daughter.

The three travellers had reached the thickest shades of the forest without interchanging a word.  It must have been a fair sight, in that hall of leafy verdure, to see this lovely woman’s form sitting on the noble and richly-ornamented steed, on her left hand the venerable priest in the white garb of his order, on her right the blooming young knight, clad in splendid raiment of scarlet, gold, and violet, girt with a sword that flashed in the sun, and attentively walking beside her.  Huldbrand had no eyes but for his wife; Undine, who had dried her tears of tenderness, had no eyes but for him; and they soon entered into the still and voiceless converse of looks and gestures, from which, after some time, they were awakened by the low discourse which the priest was holding with a fourth traveller, who had meanwhile joined them unobserved.

He wore a white gown, resembling in form the dress of the priest’s order, except that his hood hung very low over his face, and that the whole drapery floated in such wide folds around him as obliged him every moment to gather it up and throw it over his arm, or by some management of this sort to get it out of his way, and still it did not seem in the least to impede his movements.  When the young couple became aware of his presence, he was saying: