neither the name nor address of the gentleman. The money was, therefore,
put away safely, and the savings of a few months soon made up the
original sum of six florins, but still nothing could be heard of the
giver.

Time wore on, and the boy was rapidly becoming an expert workman. He had
regularly swept the warehouse for three years, then finding he could
earn more by violin-making during the time so occupied, he resigned in
favor of a boy as poor as he had been. Brand had pronounced him quite
worthy of regular work, having often tested his ability by leaving to
him the most difficult parts of the instruments. He had made himself a
zither, and could play all those national airs so peculiarly the
property of the mountaineers, and which are so suited to the plaintive
sweetness of that instrument.

Before Stephan was eighteen, his fame as a zither-player had spread far
and wide; no marriage, or festival of any kind, was complete without his
well-looking, good-humored face.

One day, Stephan was putting away his tools when he was sent for by a
nobleman, who had stopped overnight at the village, and he soon came
back with the news the Baron Liszt had engaged him to act as guide to
the Krotten Kopf mountain the next day, and Brand was also wanted to
help to carry the wraps and needful provisions.

Early in the morning the party started. The Baroness accompanied her
husband, and there were one or two gentlemen with their wives. Stephan
and Brand, laden with shawls, umbrellas, and knapsacks, then led the way
with the slow, steady pace always adopted by the mountaineers, who know
that speed avails nothing when great heights have to be climbed, as it
cannot possibly be kept up, and only exhausts the strength at the onset.
After climbing two hours, a turn in a very steep portion of the path
brought them suddenly upon a green plateau, walled in, as it were, by
mountain peaks, which looked of no particular height till the ascent
began. Though the sun had scarcely set, yet, at such an elevation, the
air was more than chilly, and as the Baroness put on a warm shawl she
said, one could easily account for the fresh looks of the "sennerinnen,"
who spend the intensely hot months in so cool and healthful an
atmosphere; for the Alps are never scorched and dried up as elsewhere
during the summer. The Esterberg Alp, as it is called, consists of two
large tracts of rich meadow, green and fresh as in our own fertile land,
with a border of