The Birthday Feast

It was a song of sunshine and green grass, of sweet flowers and sparkling waters, and the guests, listening spellbound, forgot all else save the singer and her song.

But hark! the song is changing. Who is the child of whom Undine sings? A child who has been borne by the waves far from the home of her birth. The little one is lying like a flower among the meadow grass (the guests can see her as the singer sings) and reaches out her tiny hands for help.

Ah! now they hear the tramp, tramp of a horse. A noble duke is riding slowly along. He halts, for he sees the little maid. He stoops and lifts her in his arms, and carries her off to his own castle, and surrounds her with splendour and with wealth.

And now tears gather in the eyes of the guests. The song is drawing to a close, and Undine is singing of an unknown shore, where in a little cottage sit a father and mother, desolate and sad, for they have lost their little child, and they know not where to find her.

Among all the guests were none who listened to the song more eagerly than Bertalda's noble foster-parents.

'She has sung the story of Bertalda, the little child we found so long ago,' they said each to the other. 'It was even thus we found her in the meadow, among the flowers.'