Ten springs had passed over Tyrol's mountains and valleys, and there had been many changes in the time. The young trees had grown tall and leafy; the children had become men and women. Hans was no longer a goat-herd, but a clever senner, as they call the mountain shepherds in the Tyrol, and now the farmer's herds had been entrusted to his sole care during the rest of their stay on the higher pastures, to which he had led them early in spring. The setting sun glowed on the lofty glacier before him, and its reflection flowed down to the night pasture, and hung like a golden veil over the pine trees, beneath whose wide branches the herds had lain down for their nightly rest. But Hans stood before his cottage, which he had entered to-day for the first time as senner, and gazed joyfully on his new charge. The valleys were already slumbering in the evening shadows, but the peaks of the glacier were aglow with purple, and reminded the young man of an image that he had long borne in his soul with secret longing; he thought now, as he had not done for months, of the rose-garden before the crystal palace, and of the little man who had been his yearly companion in the farmer's hay-loft, and who, every autumn, had climbed the mountain side to say farewell to him, and then with his wallet full of gold had returned on his magic mantle to his distant home. He had never asked the old man for a glance into the mountain mirror since he had received that grave warning about idle curiosity, and these memories of King Laurin's realm had gradually faded. But his reverence for the strange old man had remained unchanged, and every day he had shared his supper with him out of gratitude for the parting gift which Hans had long ago taken home to his mother. He had not hoped or promised too much. With the little man's dim old coin blessing had come into the hut of poverty, and the money in the drawer had never grown less. There was always some left, even when they erected on the site of the tumble-down cottage a firmly built and comfortable house, and though after that they bought many a much needed piece of furniture and warm clothing for the winter. There was no need now to creep in secretly at even to receive the gifts of the kind-hearted farmer's wife without her miserly husband's knowledge. They were able first to keep one cow, and then two, and then--Hans looked joyfully round on the slumbering herds--four fine cows now rested there, his mother's property, which he had been allowed to lead up to the mountain pastures to graze with his master's cattle. The churlish farmer, indeed, had never granted him this favour, but his unkindly eyes had closed for the last sleep the autumn before, and the eyes which now shone in the farm-house were so mild and lovely that it was a pleasure to obey their glance. What were these eyes like? Hans tried to remember as he gazed at the glacier, whose purple had changed to a pale rosy hue. Yes, yes, now he knows.