“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 forest, indeed, appears very terrible to me.  Horrible spectres make it their haunt, and I am so fearful.  But how can I help it?  I have only come here at this early hour to beg the noble lady of Ringstetten to pardon my unbecoming behaviour of yesterday.  Sweet lady, I have the fullest persuasion that you meant to do me a kindness, but you were not aware how severely you would wound me; and then, in my agony and surprise, so many rash and frantic expressions burst from my lips.  Forgive me, ah, forgive me!  I am in truth so unhappy, already.  Only consider what I was but yesterday morning, what I was even at the beginning of your yesterday’s festival, and what I am to-day!”

Her words now became inarticulate, lost in a passionate flow of tears, while Undine, bitterly weeping with her, fell upon her neck.  So powerful was her emotion, that it was a long time before she could utter a word.  At length she said: 

“You shall still go with us to Ringstetten; all shall remain just as we lately arranged it; but say ‘thou’ to me again, and do not call me ‘noble lady’ any more.  Consider, we were changed for each other when we were children; even then we were united by a like fate, and we will strengthen this union with such close affection as no human power shall dissolve.  Only first of all you must go with us to Ringstetten.  How we shall share all things as sisters, we can talk of after we arrive.”

Bertalda looked up to Huldbrand with timid inquiry.  He pitied her in her affliction, took her hand, and begged her tenderly to entrust herself to him and his wife.

“We will send a message to your parents,” continued he, “giving them the reason why you have not come;”—­and he would have added more about his worthy friends of the peninsula, when, perceiving that Bertalda shrank in distress at the mention of them, he refrained.  He took her under the arm, lifted her first into the carriage, then Undine, and was soon riding blithely beside them; so persevering was he, too, in urging forward their driver, that in a short time they had left behind them the limits of the city, and a crowd of painful recollections; and now the ladies could take delight in the beautiful country which their progress was continually presenting.