Ernestine was for the time incapable of speech. She could not raise her eyes to her protector. Mortification, profound mortification, overpowered her. How thoroughly she had recognized his position as a man, and her own as a woman! She admired him,--she was ashamed of herself. What a feeling it was!--yes, it was the same self-humiliation that she had felt once before, beneath the oak tree where, when flying as to-day from insults and sneers, she had met the handsome lad who had given her the prophetic book. But when would the prophecy in the fairy-tale be fulfilled? When should she cease to be laughed at, despised, and insulted? When should the lonely, persecuted, weary swan unfold its plumage upon calm waters in sunshine and peace? And in an access of pain she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. She sank down upon the mound and sobbed like a child. Johannes stood silent before her. His mind was filled with the same thoughts, the same memories, and, like an answer to her mute soliloquy, there came from his lips, in tones of melting tenderness, the words, "Poor swan!" Ernestine's hands dropped from her face, she stared at him with wide-open eyes,--then sprang up, and, while her pale cheeks flushed, and her whole frame trembled, gazed at him still, as if she would look him through, her agitation increasing every moment. "There--there is only one person on earth who knows that," she faltered. "What?" asked Johannes with a beating heart. "What I was thinking of--about the swan!" she articulated with difficulty, for her voice failed her. Johannes, who stood somewhat below Ernestine, looked up at her expectantly. "And who is that person?" he asked gently. Ernestine could not reply,--a strange thrill passed through her, and she awaited the issue of the miracle of the moment. "Ernestine, do you remember the lad who once rescued a wild, timid girl from mortal peril?" She bowed her head in assent. "Ernestine, did you ever then for one moment in your childish heart think of him with love?" She raised her eyes to the twilight skies, and was silent for a moment; then she breathed a scarcely audible "Yes." A light, feathery cloud hovered above her head. Was it the little mermaid, dead for her beloved's sake, and, dissolved in foam, borne away by the daughters of the air to eternal bliss? Could it return again,--that fair, half-forgotten love-dream of her childhood,--the only one she had ever dreamed? And she looked after the floating cloud as it grew thinner and thinner, until it was gradually dissolved in air, and the gentle radiance of the evening star appeared where it faded.