Has our reader ever heard, or read, of those strange gatherings, which take place at the early spring in the greater number of southern German cities and are called, “Year Markets?” The object is simply to assemble the youth of the mountain districts in Tyrol and Vorarlbreg, that they may be hired, by the farmers of the rich pasture countries, as herds. Thither they go---many a mile--some children of ten or eleven years old, and seeming even still younger, away from home and friends, little adventurers on the bleak wide ocean of life, to sojourn among strangers in far-off lands; to pass days long in lonely valleys or deep glens, without a sight or sound of human life around them; watching the bright sun and counting the weary minutes over, that night and rest may come, per* chance with dreams of that far-off home, which, in all its poverty, is still cheered by the fond familiar faces! Some, ruddy and stout-looking, seem to relish the enterprise, and actually enjoy the career so promising in its vicissitudes; others, sad and care-worn, bear with them the sorrows of their last leave-taking, and are only comforted by the thought that autumn will come at last, and then the cattle must be housed for the winter: and then they shall be free to wend their way over mountain and plain, far, far away beyond Maltz--high in the wild peaks of the Stelvio, or deep in the lovely glens below Meran. It was in one of these “Markets” at Inspruck that a little boy was seen, not standing with the groups which usually gather together under a single leader, but alone and apart, seemingly without one that knew him. His appearance bespoke great poverty; his clothes, originally poor, were now in rags; his little cap, of squirrel skin, hung in fragments on either side of his pallid cheeks; his feet--a rare circumstance--were bare, and bloodstained from travel; want and privation were stamped in every feature: and his eyes, which at that moment were raised with eager anxiety as some Bauer drew nigh, grew wan, and filling at each new disappointment to his hopes, for this was his third day to stand in the market, and not one had even asked his name. And yet he heard that name; ever and anon it met his ears in sounds which stirred his feeble heart, and made it throb faster. “Fritzerl! ah, Fritzerl, good fellow!” were the words; and poor Fritzerl would stoop down when he heard them and peep into a little cage where a Starling was perched--a poor, emaciated little thing it was, as way-worn and poverty struck, to all seeming, as himself: but he did not think so: he deemed it the very paragon of the feathered tribe, for it had a little toppin of brown feathers on its head, and a little ring of white around its neck, and would come when he called it; and, better than all, could sing, “Good Fritzerl--nice Fritzerl!” when it was pleased, and “Potztausend!” when angry. This was all its education; his master, poor little fellow, had not much more.