Grandfather gives Heidi and Clara the goat's milk to drink when Heidi brings Clara to visit her healthy mountain home.

Heidi is surprised when she awakes in the morning to see that Clara is up ahead of her and already being carried down the stairs by Grandfather. The handicapped Clara has never experienced unadulterated nature before and is delighted with the mountain cottage's surroundings. She drinks in the fresh, fragrant air and the sunshine that pours down on her when they go outside. It is far better than she had expected, and she tells Heidi she wishes could stay forever. Clara feels comforted and healthier than ever before in this natural, idyllic setting.

The goat's milk is part of the new environment Clara has entered. Grandfather brings in "two small foaming bowls of snow-white milk." Clara drinks hers and finds it delicious, as if it had been flavored with cinnamon or sugar.

The "snow-white" goat's milk is part of the pure and healing world that Clara finds in the Alps. The book portrays civilization as crippling and disabling, while nature is pictured as a paradise. This idealized vision of the natural world is central to Romanticism. We can feel assured that under nature's munificent and yet simple hand, Clara will experience a cure unlike any a city's doctor could offer her.