In the little hamlet of Anneberg, far up among the Erzberges or Copper Mountains of Saxony, there dwelt, once upon a time, a gentle child named Barbara. She was so fair, with such soft blue eyes, such long golden curls, and withal wearing a look of such exceeding sweetness, that the people of the hamlet, who were all miners, or workers in metal, called her by a name that signified the “Lily of the Mines.” Barbara was an orphan, a little lone creature, whom no one claimed, but whom every body loved. Her father had been a delver into the depths of the earth, and when she was only a tiny little baby, he had kissed her round cheek, and gone to his daily labor at early dawn; but ere the shadows of the dark trees fell toward the eastern slope of the hills, he was brought home mangled and lifeless. The “fire-damp” had seized him and his companions; or, as the simple peasants believed, the demon of the mine had arisen in his might, and torn to pieces the daring spoilers of his treasure-house. Barbara’s mother did not long outlive the dreadful sight. She pined away, with a dull aching at her heart, and one morning a kind neighbor found the child sleeping calmly on the cold bosom of her dead mother. From that moment the little Barbara became the nursling of the whole hamlet. The good women of the village remembered that she had been born on a Sunday morning, and according to their tender and beautiful faith, the “_Sabbath-child_” had received a peculiar blessing, which was shared, in some degree, by all who ministered to her wants. So Barbara was the foster-child of many mothers, and found heart-kindred in every cottage. But chiefly did she dwell, after she had grown beyond the swaddling-bands of infancy, in the house of the good Gottlieb, the pastor of this little mountain flock of Christians. Barbara grew up a gentle quiet child, rarely mingling in the noisy sports of the villagers, and loving nothing so well as to steal away to some forest nook, where she would sit for hours looking out upon the rugged face of nature, and weaving dreams, whose web, like that of the wood-spider, was broken by a breath.