vapours which arose from it, reminded Ilse
of her night of horror upon the Brocken, and
at first frightened her sadly. But the Pine-
tree talked a good deal of philosophy. Again,
after a considerable time, men brought into
the valley axes and spades, sheep and goats.
A short distance below the Ilsenstein, they
felled trees by the side of Ilse, cut them into
beams and rafters, dug a large hall for her,
with walls of stone and turf, and a great
wooden gate. They built also houses with
the beams and rafters, for themselves, their
wives and children, and, when all was ready,
came to the princess, praying her to take
possession of her hall, and be a blessing to
them. The little Ilse thanked them, and
would gladly have sprung away, but her own
chosen way was stopped with stones and
earth, and the way into her new hall being
opened suddenly, while she was in full course,
she could not stop herself, but tumbled
through it. The men called her hall a millpond,
and when Ilse, after boiling with wrath
at the trick played upon her, had at last
stood still a little while, and patiently
collected all her waters and her thoughts, she
looked up doubtfully enough at the Pine-tree,
who stood at the gable-end of the new house.

The Pine-tree smiled and said,—

"Civilisation, little Ilse, wants our help
and countenance."

"Civilisation!" said the princess with a
sigh. "Ah! this is assuredly the work of
the evil spirit. Whoever fells so many of
God's trees, tears off their bark, and chops
them in pieces, can have no good in his
thoughts." But she was under a good preacher,
and the Pine-tree expounded to her everything
so well that she left off murmuring.

Peeping through a chink in the great
wooden gates, she saw a monstrous wheel, and
the miller's curly-headed boy, who stood on
the bank, cried to her:

"Ay, ay, look you down, Princess Ilse,
the gates will be opened in a minute, and
then the dance may begin, for round you go!"

"Shall I be broken on the wheel?" thought
Ilse, looking down upon the machine with a
beating heart.

But at that moment the boards of the
wheel began to crack and to snap, and they
whispered:

"Do you not know us, Little Ilse, we are
your darling trees; cannot you recollect us?
Fear nothing; we shall never hurt you!"

So, when the miller came out, raised the
sluice gates, and cried cheerily,—"Come
down now, little Ilse, you have rested long
enough; come down, and help us poor men
to live by our work,"—the good little princess
saw that she could comfort men as well as
mosses; and, no longer timid, ran over the
wheel, gathering up her robe around her as
she went, and placing her white feet tenderly
and carefully, first upon one spoke, and then
upon another. Then, when the wheel began
to move under her lightsome tread, she sprang
bravely from step to step, let her veil flutter
in the breeze, wrapped herself in her foam-
dress, and having given her kind help, capered
away down the millstream, while the wheel
went round with a mighty sweep, and the
whole mill beat time to it.

Little Ilse soon offered her services to
other men, gave her own pure water for the
nourishment of all, worked with men in the
mills, and in the iron-works, got into
convenient carriages made for her service by the
people of the valley, and so visited the
mothers and the daughters in their dwellings,
and helped them all the day long in their
household work. She saw to the growth of
vegetables in the garden, bathed the children,
scrubbed floors, washed clothes, and cooked
dinners. But—while the serene princess was
thus to be seen busy at work, early and late,
never weary nor impatient of hard labour
—whoever met her in the valley, pure
and bright as when she stepped out of the
forest, saw at once that she was no stream
of low origin, but in good truth a princess;
daughter of the sunbeam, and that her baby
sister was none other than the dewdrop in
the rose.

A dusty road came and desired to be her
travelling companion.

"No, indeed," she said. "The venerable
woodland path was quite a different
companion. He used to come decked in his best,
peep round the point of the rock, and beckon
to me from beneath the green shade of the
oaks."

"Ilse, Ilse!" cried the Pine-tree from the
precipice by the roadside. "Fie! what
foolish talk is this?"

The Pine-tree is the friend of man; but,
in spite of all it could say, Ilse would have
as little to do as possible with the highway,
though she would not hinder it from passing
down the valley. Through bye ways,
through the deepest shades of the forest, she
sought, by serpentine courses, to keep it out
of her sight. Often indeed when she sprang
away over the rocks in mad speed, and thought
to have escaped entirely from her dusty,
prosy neighbour, she would run all at once
against him. Once, when this happened, the
highway even dared to put an arm over her
neck, or, as men phrased it, threw a bridge
over her, and the wise Ilse gliding along,
kept her displeasure to herself, in order to
escape as soon and as quietly as possible.

Little Ilse's anger is now always brief.
Lower down in the valley she is to be seen
journeying tranquilly beside the highway.
She is to be seen; for she lives to this day,
and still goes daily into the mills and iron
foundries of the valley, following her modest
avocations. When, on a Sunday, the mills
are at rest, and the industrious inhabitants
in holiday garments, pray in the ancient
little church, the silvery tones of little Ilse's
voice are to be heard chiming harmoniously
with the voices of the bells and of the pealing