The two friends kept the happy young wife in ignorance of this first thunderclap of the storm which was threatening her married life. On the Sunday morning they went to make a friendly call on the Heimlicher during the church service; unfortunately he was at church, however. They postponed their entertaining visit till the afternoon; but then he himself was paying one to the chapel of the orphan asylum, the whole blooming body of the orphans, boys and girls, having previously made one to him, to enjoy the privilege of kissing his hand in his capacity of superintendent of the orphan asylum; for the inspectorship of that institution was, as he modestly but truly observed, entrusted to his unworthy hands. After the evening sermon, he had to perform a service of his own in his own house, in short, he was fenced off from the two advocates by a triple row of spiritual altar rails. It was his admirable custom to permit the members of his household, not indeed to eat, but to pray at the same table with him. He thought it well to spend the Sunday as a day of labour in psalm-singing with them, because, by such devotional exercises, he best preserved them from sins of Sabbath breaking, such as working on _their own_ account, at sewing, mending, &c. And, on the whole, he thought it well to make of the Sunday in this manner a day of preparation for the coming week, just as actors in places where Sunday representations are not allowed, have their rehearsals on that day. However, I recommend people in delicate health not to go near or smell at this sort of beautiful sky-blue plants which grow in the Church's vineyard only to be looked at, as an English garden is adorned with the pretty aconite and its sky- or Jesuit's-blue _poisonous_ flowers, which grow pyramidally to man's height.[14] People like Von Blaise, not only ascend Mount Sinai and the Golgotha, that, like goats, they may feed as they climb; but they occupy these sacred heights for the purpose of making attacks and incursions from them, just as good generals take possession of the hills, and particularly the _gallows-hills_. The Heimlicher mounts from earth to the heavens oftener than Blanchard does, and with similar motives, indeed, he can keep his soul on the wing in these elevated regions for half a day at a time, in which respect, however, he does not quite equal the King of Siam's dragon kites which the mandarins, by relieving each other at the task, manage to keep up in the sky for a couple of months at a time. He soars, not as the lark does, to make music, but as the noble falcon does, to swoop down upon something or other. If you see him praying on a Mount of Olives, be sure that he's going to build an oil mill on it; and if he weeps by a brook Kedron, depend upon it he's either going a-fishing in it, or else thinking of pitching somebody into it. He prays with the object of luring to him the _ignes-fatui_ of sins; he kneels, but only