But year after year fleeted on, and the Herr Uttman’s coal-black locks had become almost silver-white, while Barbara’s cheek had lost nothing of its smoothness, and her golden locks, though gathered beneath a matron’s coif, were still as glossy and sunny as in her girlhood. (For time seemed to have spared her gentle beauty, as if in reverence for the gentle spirit which it had so long clothed in a fitting garb.) She had long since forgotten her youthful repinings, for from every cottage in the hamlet had blessings gone up to heaven upon her who was the friend of the friendless, and, though her dream was still vivid in her remembrance, she fancied that she had already attained its fulfillment in the gratitude of the poor. “Come with me, sweet wife, and I will show thee a new wonder in the mines,” said the good Herr Uttman, one summer’s morning. Barbara looked up with a pleasant smile: “Have I not threaded with thee all the mazes of the dark mountains, and gathered the glittering spar, the many-tinted stone, and the rough gem? Are there yet more marvels in thy dark domain?” “Nay, don thy wimple and hood, and thou shalt see.” So Barbara went forth with her husband, and he led her to the yawning mouth of a dark cavern in the mountains. Carefully enfolding her in a thick cloak, to protect her from the jagged points of the rocks, he took her in his arms, (for he had lost none of his gigantic strength,) and bore her like a child, into the cavern. For a time they wended their way in what seemed to her total darkness, and she was only conscious of being carried along winding passages, where she felt the spray of a subterranean torrent, and heard the dash of its waters in some unfathomed chasm. At length her husband, setting her feet upon a broad ledge of rock, lifted the cloak from her face and bade her look upon the scene before her. Barbara found herself at the entrance of a long gallery in the mine, in the roof of which an aperture had been made up to the outer surface of the mountain, and through which a flood of sunshine was pouring down into what seemed a glittering corridor, hung with festoons of the most exquisitely wrought tapestry. Never had Barbara beheld any thing so fantastically beautiful. The sides of the shaft were covered with a half transparent fabric, enwrought with patterns like rich embroidery, through which the gleam of the metal shone like gold, as the sunbeam danced into the cavern depths.