blue and crimson fruits shine in their gardens; they wander over the pure sand of the sea, and among lovely variegated shells and amid all the exquisite treasure of the old world, which the present world is no longer worthy to enjoy. All these the floods have covered with their mysterious veil of silver; below sparkle, stately and solemn, many noble ruins, washed by the loving waters which win from them delicate moss-flowers and entwining clusters of sea-grass. Those who dwell there are very fair and lovely to behold–more beautiful, I ween, than human beings. Here and there a fisherman has been lucky enough to espy some mermaid as she rose from the waters and sang; thereupon he would tell, near and far, of her beauty, and such wondrous beings have been called Undines. Thou, dear one, art actually seeing an Undine."
Now the knight tried hard to persuade himself that the spell of one of her strange humours was upon his wife, and that it pleased her to tease him with some extravagant fancy of her own. But albeit that he said this to himseif over and over again, he persuaded himself none the better; he shook with a strange unnatural shudder, and having no power to utter a word, stared at his companion with unmoving eyes. For her part, Undine moved her head to and fro sadly, and with a deep sigh went on as followeth:
"We should live far more happily than other human beings–for human beings we call ourselves, being
