is sister by the hand, and said--

"Now, let us go; we have stayed long enough. Good Hill-man, you shall
have your cap again when you have brought Reutha and me to our own
father's door."

But the Hill-man shook his tiny head, and made his most obsequious
bow. "Noble master, anything but this! This little maid we found
asleep on our hill, and she is ours for a hundred years."

Here Arndt got into a passion; for, convinced of the power the little
green cap gave him over the dwarfs, he had long lost all fear of them.
He stamped with his foot until the little man leaped up a yard high,
and begged his master to be more patient.

"How dare you keep my sister? you ugly little creatures!" cried the
boy, his former pleasant companion becoming at once hateful to him.
But the Hill-people only gave him gentle answers; until at last he
grew ashamed of being so angry with such tiny creatures. They led him
to a palace, more beautiful than any he had yet seen, and showed him
pearls and diamonds heaped up in basketfuls.

"You shall take all these away with you, noble sir!" said his little
servant. "They will make you a rich man all the days of your life, and
you will live in a palace as fine as ours. Is not that far better than
having a poor helpless sister to work for?"

But Arndt caught a glimpse of Reutha, as she sat outside; weeping--she
dared not enter with him--and he kicked the baskets over, and
scattered the jewels like so many pebbles.

"Keep all your treasures, and give me my sister!" cried he.

Then the Hill-man tried him with something else. Arndt was a very
handsome boy and everybody had told him so, until he was rather vain.
Many a time, when he worked in the field, he used to look at himself
in a clear, still pool, and think how golden his hair was, and how
lithe and graceful his figure. Now the Hill-man knew all this; and so
he led the boy to a crystal mirror and showed him his own beautiful
form, set off with every advantage of rich dress. And then, by fairy
spells, Arndt saw beside it the image of the little peasant as he was
when he entered the hill.

"Think how different!" whispered the dwarf. He breathed on the mirror,
and the boy saw himself as he would be when he grew up--a
hard-working, labouring man; and opposite, the semblance of a young,
graceful nobleman, whose face was the same which the stream had often
told him was his own.

"We can make thee always thus handsome. Choose which thou wilt be,"