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24 The old man wept bitterly at her song, but this seemed not to move her a jot. She was all for kissing and caressing her new friend, until he said to her, "Undine, if the old man's grief touch not thy heart, it toucheth mine; let us go back to him."

She opened wide her large eyes in wonder, and spoke at last slowly and hesitatingly. "If this be thy wish, well and good. What is right for thee is right for me. But the old man yonder must first give me his word that he will let thee tell me what thou sawest in the wood and–other things will follow as they must."

"Come, only come," cried the fisherman, unable to utter another word. He stretched his hands to her across the rushing stream, and as he nodded his head as though in fulfilment of her request, his white hair fell strangely over his face in such sort that Huldbrand bethought himself of the nodding white man of the forest. But not letting himself think of anything that might baffle or confuse him, the knight took the beautiful girl in his arms and bore her over the narrow space where the stream had divided her little island from the shore.

The old man fell on Undine's neck and seemed as though he could never have his fill of joy; his good wife also came up and with great tenderness kissed her recovered child. No word of reproach passed their lips, and even Undine, forgetting all her petulance, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with