without a thought of taking you with
them?"

The little Ilse, however, drew up her head
and said pertly,

"I have not been forgotten; the old Weser
waited long enough for me, beckoned and
called me to come with her, and the Ecker
and the Ocker wanted to take my hand; but
I would not go with them, certainly not.
Was it for me to demean myself in the plains,
carrying drink to sheep and oxen, and washing
their muddy feet? I am the Princess
Ilse! The sunbeam is my father, and the
pure air is my mother; my brother is the
diamond, and the dew in the rose-bud is my
infant sister. I am a princess of the first
water, and really cannot come down from the
height on which I have been placed."

The good spirit looked very earnestly at
the pale face of little Ilse; and, as he gazed
down into the liquid blue of her bright eyes,
he saw dark points under the sparkle of their
pride, which told him that a wicked spirit
lurked within. The little demon of Vanity
had entered Ilse's head, and driven all good
thoughts away. This ugly spirit has already
turned the head of many a foolish child.

"Dear Ilse," the good spirit said, "since
you remain here of your own free-will,
you should be very happy. I cannot in the
least understand why you are weeping and
lamenting."

"Alas! " answered the child Ilse, "after
the other waters were all gone, dear angel,
the Stormwind came to the mountain, and
when he found me here he was quite furious.
He raged at me, and tried to throw me down
from yonder rock that overhangs a dark
abyss, into which no glimmer of daylight will
ever come. I trembled, and wept, and clung
to the peak of the rock, and at last escaping
from his hold, hid myself in this cleft."

"But you will not escape every time,"
said the spirit, "because the Stormwind is
always searching; and, if it catches any one
in a cleft like yours, it is a wind that bites
most terribly. Come, let me lead you to the
good old Weser and your young companions.
You shall travel through the night air in the
woolly blanket of a cloud, and slide down to
them merrily upon a sheet of rain."

"No! no!" cried the little Ilse, "I don't
want to go down; I shall stay here: I am
a princess!"

So the good spirit left her, and the princess,
obstinate, crept once more into her rocky
niche, rejoicing that she had shown so much
character, and had given sturdy answers to
the monitor who spoke to her, not then only,
but many times, in vain.

The Princess Ilse, being at last quite alone,
upon the mountain-summit, wished to enjoy
her dignity as much as possible. She came
out of the rocky cleft, seated herself upon a
projecting peak, spread her airy robes out in
broad folds around her, and then waited for
the mountains to bow down before her, and
the clouds to come and kiss her. Nothing
of this kind, however, came to pass; and
at last, her highness became tired of sitting
still so long, and said to herself with a sigh,
"A little ennui I should not have minded—
it is only the consequence of my exalted
position; but so much of it is more than even
a princess of the first water can bear."

When it was quite evening, and the
sun had set, and the raging of the
approaching Stormwind was again heard in
the distance, the poor little rivulet wept
fresh tears of anxiety. It became darker.
Coarse blinding vapours rose from the abyss,
and there was thunder in the air. There
came a ray of light at last, but it affrighted
the child Ilse, for it came with a dark man,
wrapped in a long red mantle, who bowed
low and spoke to her. But he addressed her
as "Most high and serene princess." Such
greeting was sweet music to the little Ilse's
ear. She controlled her fear that she might
listen eagerly for more of such words.

The stranger came, in fact, to beg that she
would add her lustre to his court; said that
he longed to escort her to his airy palace
upon one of the loftiest and noblest of the
German mountains; where she should reign
far above all earthly rivulets and rivers.

The stranger opened his mantle and
produced a wide-lipped shell, exquisitely carved
and studded round its base with sparkling
gems. He knelt to the charming princess and
besought that she would seat herself therein,
in order that she might be carried away to
his beautiful Brockenberg, where servants
unnumbered were already preparing to
receive her joyously. Her serene highness's
hesitation was at an end, and she sprang into
the car with both feet at once. One ringlet
of her flowing tresses touched the stranger's
arm, and instantly it shrivelled up. Sharp
pain throbbed through all the limbs of the
rash little Ilse.

The poor child, affrighted, grasped the edge
of the shell as if she would have thrown
herself out over it again; but they were already
shooting through the air swift as a comet;
and, as the pain was soon over, the streamlet
soon became reassured; for she little suspected
that she had given herself to the great spirit
of evil, who was by when the demon of Vanity
had prompted her to turn her own good angel
away. It is in this manner that the sweet
Princess Ilse was brought to a place so
unhallowed as the Brocken.

Wild music and shouts of mirth, greeted
her when she arrived; but the lord of the
Brocken commanded silence, placed the car
which contained her carefully upon a large
flat stone, as if upon a throne, and ordered
the strange beings flitting around to form a
circle and do homage to the Water Princess.

That was a glorious moment for her ladyship.
Gracefully she rose up in the shell and
bowed her head to right and left, shaking
her curls, like a half bashful coquette. She