It was late in the evening when the company separated. "The first and only feast of my life," said Henry, when he was alone, and his mother had retired wearied to rest. "Do I not feel as I felt in that dream about the blue flower? What peculiar connexion is there between Matilda and that flower? That face, which bowed towards me from the petals, was Matilda's heavenly countenance, and I also now remember that I saw it in that book. But why did it not there thus move my heart? O! she is the visible spirit of song, the worthy daughter of her father. She will dissolve me into music. She will become my inmost soul, the guardian spirit of my holy fire. What an eternity of faithful love do I feel within me? I was born only to revere her, to serve her forever, to think of and to feel her. Does there not belong a peculiar, undivided existence to her contemplation and worship? Am I the happy one, whose being may be the echo, the mirror of her's? It is not owing to chance that I have seen her at the end of my journey, that a happy feast has encircled the highest moment of my life. It could not have been otherwise; for does not her presence render every thing a feast?" He stepped to the window. The choir of the stars stood in the dusky sky, and in the east a white glimmer announced the coming day. Full of rapture, Henry exclaimed, "Ye eternal stars, ye silent wanderers, I call upon you as witnesses of my sacred oath. For Matilda will I live, and eternal constancy shall bind her to my heart. The morning of eternal day is also opening for me. The night is past. I kindle myself to the rising sun, for an inextinguishable offering."