Next day I went back to the forest, hoping to find the Moss-woman again, but she was not there. I found instead an Elf who was almost too small to be seen. She told me that she and her sisters lived in the cells which make leaves so green, and mixed things they drew in from the air and sunlight with the water that came through the roots, turning these into sugar to feed the tree. It sounded like magic, and I was so much interested that I almost forgot to ask about the Moss-women. "Poor little things!" said the Leaf-Elf kindly, when I said I had seen one. "It is well that the woodcutters are their friends, or they would fare badly. Many a meal did they have from them in past times, and even Hans the Unlucky never grudged them what he gave. They paid him back for it, never fear, for they do not forget a kindness." "Who was he?" I asked. And this is what she told me. [Illustration] The Luck of Hans. "Of all the unlucky mortals, Hans was surely the most to be pitied, for though he was honest and frugal, nothing he touched seemed to prosper. The farm had done well in his father's lifetime, but after he died there was not one good season for three bad ones. Far from being idle, Hans was up before dawn, and still hard at work at sundown. His mother sent away her maids, since she could not pay them their wages, and kept the house straight herself; where could you find a worthier pair? But Hans' affairs went from bad to worse, and when (at the busiest time of the year) his mother lost her sight and became quite blind it was clear he was born to be unlucky. The farm went to rack and ruin, and there came a time when Hans was forced to go off to the forest to fell a tree that his poor old mother might have fuel to warm her. When the sun was high, he drew out his lunch, and a poor little Moss-woman stole out from the undergrowth to beg a few crumbs for her hungry children. 'Take it all!' he cried, thrusting his bread into her tiny hands. 'It is waste of good food for a man to eat who is as unlucky as I.' 'I cannot repay you in kind, friend Hans,' said the Moss-woman, 'but I will give you some good advice. In the house by the mill lives a sweet young girl, with a face tinged with pink like a daisy's. She has loved you long, for you are her mate. Take her to wife, and your luck will turn.' Hans flushed deep crimson beneath his tan, and the veins on his forehead grew tense and hard. 'You--you--' he stammered; 'you must mean Elsa? And Elsa, you say, Elsa cares for _me_? It can't--it can't--be true.' 'A woman's heart goes where it will,' answered the Moss-woman. 'Try your luck, friend Hans, and lose no time. Life is short, and the days are flying.' Hans went at once to the house by the mill, for had he not gazed at it time and again as the casket which held his treasure? When Elsa saw him coming with that look upon his face, she twisted a ribbon, blue as her eyes, in the pale gold plait that crowned her head, and went shyly down to meet him.