CHAPTER XVI.
HOW IT FARED FURTHER WITH HULDBRAND.
Shall we say it is well or ill, that our sorrow is of such short duration?
I mean that deep sorrow which affects the very well-spring of our life, which becomes so one with the lost objects of our love that they are no longer lost, and which enshrines their image as a sacred treasure, until that final goal is reached which they have reached before us! It is true that many men really maintain these sacred memories, but their feeling is no longer that of the first deep grief.

Other and new images have thronged between; we learn at length the transitoriness of all earthly things, even to our grief, and, therefore.

I must say "Alas, that our sorrow should be of such short duration ?" The lord of Ringstetten experienced this whether for his good, we shall hear in the sequel to this history.

At first he could do nothing but weep, and that as bitterly as the poor gentle Undine had wept when he had torn from her hand that brilliant ornament with which she had wished to set everything to rights.

And then he would stretch out his hand, as she had done, and would weep again, like her.