On the other hand, Bertha, whilst her brother thus recovered his strength and spirits, became every day more and more pale and melancholy. It was easy to perceive, that only her anxiety for Sir Heerdegen’s life, and her wish to comfort the old knight, had before prevented her from falling into this mood of sadness. Now, however, the two warriors sat together over their full brimming wine-cups, enlivened often by the old minstrel Walter, who came to entertain them with his heroic ballads. Bertha meanwhile was left amid the woods and meadows, like a poor lonely flower, wearing out her life with melancholy dreams, mournful songs, and deep-drawn sighs, amid the solitude of nature. Truly she would soon have faded quite away, even like the fair Lisberta, or like the hermit of the Finland frontiers, only that her brother also knew these stories, and told them to Bertha; so that she knew there had been others in the world who had sufferings like her own. Yet she clung to him always with most confidence when he spoke to her of the Lady Minnatrost, and was in heart rejoiced to think that this pious Druda had not been merely a phantom raised by the feverish dreams of her brother, but that in East Friesland there really lived a heroine of that name, who was also her near relation. But, notwithstanding all this, she became always paler and more absorbed in her own meditations, so that she scarcely ever spoke; and when Sir Heerdegen questioned her, she used to answer, “Alas! dear brother, it will never be my lot to see in this life the wonderful lady, of whose love and charity you have said so much. But beyond the grave are the realms and habitations of love, and it is time methinks, that death, like a gentle sleep, should close up this world from my senses, that I might awake in that sanctuary.” These and other words of the same tenour were faithfully repeated to Sir Hugh by the Knight of Lichtenried, who added hereto, that if Bertha were not soon conducted to the castle of the Lady Minnatrost, she would in a few months be departed to join her loving ancestors in heaven. Sir Hugh then summoned up all his resolution, directed that his niece should be brought before him, and in a solemn voice ordered that in a few days she should be prepared to go with her brother to the distant land of East Friesland, where was situated the castle of her aunt, named the Lady Minnatrost. Bertha looked doubtfully and mournfully at the old man, whose heart had already been so grieved by the departure of his son. Thereupon Sir Hugh laughed aloud; “The foolish little bird thinks, perhaps, that such an old ruined tower must fall to pieces if she no longer flutters around it!” He laughed again, went into another chamber, and shut the door; but when alone the old knight wept bitterly.