"You shall tell me your story here, beautiful friend," said she, in a low whisper; "the cross old people cannot hear us here: and our roof of leaves is just as good a shelter as their poor cottage."
"It is heaven itself!" said Huldbrand, embracing the beautiful girl and kissing her fervently.
The old fisherman meanwhile had come to the edge of the stream, and shouted across to the two young people; "Why, sir knight, I have received you as one honest-hearted man is wont to receive another, and now here you are caressing my foster-child in secret, and letting me run hither and thither through the night in anxious search of her."
"I have only just found her myself, old father," returned the knight.
"So much the better," said the fisherman; "but now bring her across to me without delay upon firm ground."
Undine, however, would not hear of this; she declared she would rather go with the beautiful stranger, into the wild forest itself, than return to the cottage, where no one did as she wished, and from which the beautiful knight would himself depart sooner or later.
Then, throwing her arms round Huldbrand, she sang with indescribable grace:--
"A stream ran out of the misty vale Its fortunes to obtain, the ocean's depths it found a home And ne'er returned again."
The old fisherman wept bitterly at her song, but this did not seem to affect her particularly. She kissed and caressed her new friend, who at last said to her: "Undine, if the old man's distress does not touch your heart, it touches mine--let us go back to him."
She opened her large blue eyes in amazement at him, and spoke at last, slowly and hesitatingly: "If you think so--well, whatever you think is right to me. But the old man yonder must first promise me that he will let you, without objection, relate to me what you saw in the wood, and--well, other things will settle themselves."
"Come, only come," cried the fisherman to her, unable to utter another word: and at the same time he stretched out his arms far over the rushing stream toward her, and nodded his head as if to promise the fulfilment of her request, and as he did this, his white hair fell strangely over his face, and reminded Huldbrand of the nodding white man in the forest. Without allowing himself, however, to grow confused by such an idea the young knight took the beautiful girl in his arms, and bore her over the narrow passage which the stream had forced between her little island and the shore.
The old man fell upon Undine's neck and could not satisfy the exuberance of his joy; his good wife also came up and caressed the newly-found in the heartiest manner. Not a word of reproach passed their lips; nor was it thought of, for Undine, forgetting all her waywardness, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with affection and fond expressions.
When at last they had recovered from the excess of their joy, day had already dawned, and had shed its purple hue over the lake; stillness had followed the storm, and the little birds were singing merrily on the wet branches. As Undine now insisted upon hearing the knight's promised story, the aged couple smilingly and readily acceded to her desire. Breakfast was brought out under the trees which screened the cottage from the lake, and they sat down to it with contented hearts--Undine on the grass at the knight's feet, the place chosen by herself.
Huldbrand then proceeded with his story.
