There came sometimes to the cottage of Father Gottlieb, a dark-browed man, whose towering form and heavily-built limbs gave him the semblance of some giant of the hills. His voice was loud and as clear as a trumpet-call, and his step was bold and firm, like that of a true-born mountaineer. He was the owner of vast tracts in the mine districts, and stores of untold wealth lay hidden for him in earth’s deep caverns. Herr Uttman was stern of visage, and bold—it may be rough—in his bearing, but his heart was as gentle as a woman’s. He loved to sit at Gottleib’s board, and, while partaking of his simple fare, to drink in the wisdom which the good pastor had learned in far-off lands. The wonders of Nature—the mystic combinations that are ever going on in her subterranean laboratory—the secret virtues, or the equally secret venom, which is found in her humblest plants—the slow but unfailing process of her developments, by which the small and worthless acorn grows into the towering oak, and the winged seed lifts its broad pinions in the new form of leafy branches toward the skies—all these things Herr Uttman loved to learn from the lips of the wise old man. Therefore did he seek the pastor’s cottage whenever he had leisure to listen to his teachings. Uttman’s kindly heart had early warmed toward the orphan child of Gottlieb’s adoption. He won her infantine love by telling her wild tales of the dark mines, and the fantastic spirits of the nether world. He had tales of the Fire-Demon, and the Water-Dragon, of the Mocking-Imp, who led poor miners to their destruction, by mimicking the voice of a companion, and of the dazzling Cavern-Queen, the flash of whose diamond crown, and the gleam of whose brighter eyes, lured the poor workman to a frightful death. To sit on his knee, twining her small fingers in the black curls which fell unshorn upon his shoulders—to look in his great dark eyes as they gleamed with the enthusiasm of that half-poetic nature which is the inheritance of a high-hearted mountaineer—to feel herself nestling like a dove on his broad breast, and clinging to him half in terror, half in delight, as his strong words brought all those fearful shapes vividly before her eyes—these had been Barbara’s pleasures when a little child.