She crossed herself as she finished. Albrecht raised his eyes from the blue lake to the blue sky above them, and sighed, a sign of sadness Erna had never seen in him before.
"Why dost thou sigh?" she asked him.
"Because thou hast taught me to," he answered, with the wistful look of a loving animal in his eyes.
Then he laughed gleefully.
"Should not one sigh for the poor drowned nuns?" he asked.
"Yes," Erna said gravely; "they lost their souls."
"Always their souls," her companion responded impulsively. "Why is it that it is always the soul of which one speaks?"
"Because," she answered, with the same air she would have worn had his question been a reasonable one, "the soul is all; it is this which makes us different from the animals."
"And the nixies," he added; "and the undines, and the kobolds."
"Yes," she said gravely. She was silent a moment, and then added: "I do not know if it is right, but Father Christopher thinks it is no harm; I have always pitied the nixies and the kobolds. They are not so bad; and it is not their fault that they have no souls, and that they cannot be saved."