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54 the raiment from her face, and, looking humbly and timidly on Huldbrand, spake as follows: "Woe be it to me, for thou wilt surely refuse to keep me as thine own! And yet no evil have I done, God wotteth, and am naught but an unhappy child." And as she said these words her face had on it a look so tender and so wistful in its humility and beauty that her bridegroom clean forgot all the horror he had felt, and all the mystery that surrounded her, and, hastening to her side, he raised her in his arms. She smiled through her tears. It was a smile like the light of dawn playing on a little stream.

"Ah, thou canst not leave me," she whispered, stroking the knight's cheek with her tender hand.

Sir Huldbrand did his best to banish the thoughts of fear and dread that lurked in the background of his mind, persuading him that some fairy or some malicious and mischievous being of the spirit world had come to be his wife. Only the single question, half unawares, passed his lips: "Undine, my little Undine," quoth he, "tell me at least this one thing. What was all thy talk of spirits of the earth, and of Kühleborn, what time the priest was knocking at the door?"

"Naught but fairy-tales," answered Undine merrily, "children's fairy-tales. At the first I frighted you with them, and then you frighted me. And that is the end of our story, and of our wedding-night."