"You will get dizzy, Trude," says Johannes, anxiously looking down onto the "fall," where over sloping planks the water shoots down in wild haste and then rushes foaming into the depths below. Trude gives a short laugh and declares she has often sat here for hours and looked down without experiencing the least giddiness, and, if the worst came to the worst, why he would be there. Full of suspense she looks towards his pocket, and when he pulls out the book of poems she sighs rapturously, in anticipation of delights to come, and clasps her hands like a child ready to listen to fairy stories. The tender words of the inspired poet flow like music from his lips. "The miller's heart delights to roam"--Trude gives a cry of delight and beats time with her feet against the wooden posts. "I heard a mill-stream rushing."--Trude listens expectantly. "I saw the mill a-gleaming."--Trude clasps her hands with pleasure and points to the mill. With "Didst thou mean this, thou rippling stream?" the lovely miller-maid comes upon the scene and Trude grows serious. "Had I a thousand arms to stir." Trude gives slight signs of impatience. "No flowret I will question, nor yet the shining stars." Trude smiles to herself contentedly, "Would I might carve it upon every tree!" Trude sighs deeply and closes her eyes; and now proceed the passionate fancies of the young, love-frenzied miller, till they reach the cry of joy which penetrates above the rippling of the brook, the rushing of the mill-wheels, the song of the birds: "The loved miller-maid is mine!" Trude spreads out both arms, a smile of quiet happiness flits across her face, she shakes her head as if to say, "What in the world can come after this?"--Then suddenly commences the miller-maid's mysterious liking for green, the hunting-horn echoes through the wood, the jaunty huntsman appears. Trude grows uneasy, "What does the fellow want?" she mutters and hits the beam with her fist. The miller, the poor young miller, soon begins to understand.--"Would I could wander far away, yea, far away from home; if only there were not always green wherever the eye doth roam." Thus the burden of his mournful strain. Trude puts out her hands in suspense and hope; why, it cannot be, things must come right again in the end. And then: "Ye tiny flowrets that she gave. Come rest with me in my lonely grave." Trude's eyes grow moist, but still she hopes that the hunter may go, and the miller-maid think better of it; it cannot, it must not be otherwise. The miller and the brook begin their sad duologue--the mill-brook tries to console him, but for the miller there remains but one comfort, _one_ rest: "Ah! brooklet, little brooklet, thou wouldst comfort my pain, Ah! brooklet, canst thou make my lost love return again?" Trude nods hastily. "What has the silly brooklet to do with it? What does it know of love or pain?"