swords, and, in the same mood of humble obedience, I brought the maiden to the castle. “What I found there, dearest Bertha, I am not able to describe in many words, and truly, where all is strange and supernatural, words fail to afford any adequate impression. But look on those pale rays of your nightly lamp that now flicker around us; look at your own pale and saint-like face in the mirror, and even here you may behold a gleam,--the tenderest and loveliest,--of that light which was shed all about the castle of the Lady Minnatrost. I durst not enter her habitation; she commanded me to wait under the portico. ‘It will not be unpleasant to you,’ said she, ‘to pass the night here, half sheltered, half in the open air. There are no tempests to annoy you, and if rain falls, it is but a mild dew from heaven, which refreshes without injuring the limberest flowers. Such too will be your tears,’ added she, turning to the maiden, ‘and, after transient showers, the sunrise of joy will be brighter and lovelier.’ In truth, I perceived that the damsel immediately ceased to weep, after she had looked on the calm, thoughtful features of the Druda, illumined as they now were by the moonshine. Both then retired into the castle, and soon thereafter I heard a delightful harmony of harps and flutes sounding from its chambers. The music was slow, soft, and of exquisite modulation, fitted, as I could well imagine, to lull the unhappy maiden to forgetfulness and sleep. Thereafter the Lady Minnatrost came to me in the portico, bringing with her a golden goblet filled with wine, also a massive salver with exquisite viands. She took her place near me, and related how she was our mother’s sister, and how for many years there had belonged to her family a store of deep and miraculous knowledge, whose mysteries were yet all sanctioned by our holy religion; finally, how she believed herself to have been chosen to reside here for the guidance and instruction of a wild disorderly people. These stories were long and marvellous, lasting, indeed, through the whole of that moonlight night. Sometimes I listened with a kind of mysterious dread, but for the most part my feelings were calm and tranquil, so that I could almost think that I was once more a child, that my mother rocked me in her arms, and told me fairy tales as she had done of yore. Towards the dawn of day the Druda left me, saying, ‘Thou wilt probably remain here, in order to learn how these adventures will end, and may stay without fear of any danger.’ Thereafter I fell asleep calmly, as if I had been under the protection of a mother’s roof.