"No one pulls so good an oar, has better knowledge of wind and weather and of the sea's peculiarities; she is a water spirit with her meaningless frog's eyes. I should rely most implicitly upon her in every danger of the stormy sea. Only look how she swims; she has reached the forsaken boat, swings herself into it, and grasps the oar!" "That is disagreeable enough for me!" said Blanden. "Why in the world?" "If you would take my telescope, lovely child, you would perceive that a large number of glasses are directed towards us from the Fuchs-spitze, although a short time ago, the most solemn silence reigned beneath the Perkunos oaks. People are observing us, and will observe us still more--what will they say, if Fräulein Eva sails upon the sea with a stranger." "You are right," said Eva, suddenly blushing deeply, "but what has that to do with your boat?" "Very much, my Fräulein! If the latter floated quietly away on the sea, we might relate a credible tale of how it had leaked and I had taken refuge in your safer boat; that stupid child has deprived us of this fiction because she will row the skiff, uninjured back to the shore." "Then you must invent another tale," said Eva. "Why should I not sing and tell of a Baltic Lorelei, at sight of whom the boatman in the little boat is seized with wild melancholy, to whom he is irresistibly drawn." "Because that boatman with his little boat is not swallowed up." "Heine only fears it, my Fräulein; it need not therefore happen, and as yet we do not know the end of this little story. But just look; a whole girls' school seems to have assembled on the Fuchs-spitze and below also on the landing place I see visitors." "I fear, they are my father and mother," said Eva, "they have already always forbidden these sailing expeditions; but I cannot give them up. Such a morning's row upon the sea refreshes me so wonderfully; one seems to glide onwards into eternity upon these deep, quiet waves; above the wide heavens, beneath the increasing abyss, the farther we retire from the safe shore; and where the billows meet the sky, even there the world does not end; it only seems to do so! Far away beyond, extends the longing for other shores, for other people! There the sailing ships, the steam boats, distant, stately pass by from harbour to harbour. How large the world is! And thus surrounded with the splashing of chattering waves, with the fresh breeze wafted from afar, there I have quite different, better thoughts, than yonder amidst mankind, that is always gossiping of trivial, everyday matters, criticising dress, depriving itself of the small respect due to it."