For a moment Aragorn gazed in silence, but fearing that she would pass away and never be seen again, he called to her crying, Tinúviel, Tinúviel! even as Beren had done in the Elder Days long ago.

Then the maiden turned to him and smiled, and she said: 'Who are you? And why do you call me by that name?'

“And he answered: ‘Because I believed you to be indeed Lúthien Tinúviel, of whom I was singing. But if you are not she, then you walk in her likeness.’

“‘So many have said,’ she answered gravely. ‘Yet her name is not mind. Though maybe my doom will be not unlike hers. But who are you?’

“‘Estel I was called,’ he said; ‘But I am Aragorn, Arathorn's son, Isildur's Heir, Lord of the Dúnedain’; yet even in the saying he felt that this high lineage, in which his heart had rejoiced, was now of little worth, and as nothing compared to her dignity and loveliness.

“But she laughed merrily and said: ‘Then we are akin from afar. For I am Arwen Elrond's daughter, and I am named also Undómiel.’

“‘Often is it seen,’ said Aragorn, ‘that in dangerous days men hide their chief treasure. Yet I marvel at Elrond and your brothers; for though I have dwelt in this house from childhood, I have heard no word of you. How comes it that we have never met before? Surely your father has not kept you locked in his hoard?’

“‘No,’ she said, and looked up at the Mountains that rose in the east. ‘I have dwelt for a time in the land of my mother's kin, in far Lothlórien. I have but lately returned to visit my father again. It is many years since I walked in Imladris.’

“Then Aragorn wondered, for she had seemed of no greater age than he, who had lived yet no more than a score of years in Middle-earth. But Arwen looked in his eyes and said: ‘Do not wonder! For the children of Elrond have the life of the Eldar.’