CHAPTER VI
The Agreement.
"It was just as I thought!" exclaimed our heroine, as she looked, with pouting lips at the reflection of her pretty figure in the clear waters of the spring. Never before had her hair been so nicely arranged, and her neat white apron, which she had kept concealed beneath her cloak during her entire conversation with Magde and her father, and which she had carefully tied about her waist as soon as she had entered the meadows, how pretty it looked! But how was she repaid for all her trouble? She was about disencumbering herself both of her apron and a little scarf which she had thrown over her shoulders, when she heard a voice that she had already learned to distinguish, calling to her in the distance.
With pleased astonishment she lifted her eyes, and saw an individual whom we need scarcely inform our readers was the owner of the knapsack. He was descending a hill, holding to his lips a blade of grass, upon which he would occasionally blow a vigorous and ear-piercing blast.
"Have you come at last, my naiad queen?" said the youth. "We were such pleasant companions last evening, that I came hither in the hope of finding you at your bath again."
"A naiad queen might bathe her feet before you; but I—" She ceased speaking, and a deep blush suffused her cheeks.
"Ah! then you know something about the naiads, my child?"
"Yes, and about the sylphs, too," replied Nanna, nodding her head, proud at having an opportunity of displaying her knowledge before one whom, besides her father, was the only person that she had ever cared to interest.