The next day January followed, delighted with the parents, enraptured with the daughter, because they were so fine and she so fair. It cost my hero nothing but a word to move the step-father to the intercession for the appointment of the step-daughter, which our hero and the father had so often longed to see; and it cost the step-father, too, only a word with the Princess to get his and their petition granted.... Clotilda became maid-of-honor. Immediately upon that, the Minister von Schleunes, in a congratulatory letter, pressed upon Clotilda's parents the quarter-wing of his house, and was happy, in the epistle, "that a higher petition had _repeated_ his own with such effect." I set up this nobleman as a model to all people of the world; although, at present, all writes itself _noble_ in the _moral_, as the Viennese do in the _heraldic_ sense. Victor, who with his soul's eyes was peeping all day long into the Chamberlain's window, could hardly wait to see Clotilda, first in St. Luna, and next at court. He put off the visit from day to day, and night after night made it in dream. Not even his visiting-card--his letter to the Parson--had he sent off; he wanted, not only to carry it, but actually to supersede it, himself. But this, last thought--of suppressing the letter, for fear Clotilda might possibly get hold of this malicious conduct-list of courts, and therefrom contract a repugnance to the new office--he hurled forthwith out of his soul, as Paul did the viper from his hand. Woe to the heart that is not sincere towards a sincere one, is not great towards a great one, and warm towards a warm one, when it should be all this even towards one that is nothing of it all! For the rest, he needed such a visit, and such a reciprocal visit, every day more and more; for he was not happy; and for this there were, besides himself, to blame, first, the Prince, secondly, Flamin, thirdly, nine thousand and thirty-seven persons. The Prince could not well help it; he poured out the whole cornucopia of his love on the Doctor, and took away from him all the freedom which the latter had been minded in the beginning so sacredly to maintain. Victor shook his head as often as he wrote in his journal, or log-book of his voyage of life, (at his father's behest,) and saw by his chart that he had passed over quite other seas and degrees of latitude and longitude than he or his father had desired. "However, I shall land right, at least," said he.--