Now, for the first time, Victor learned from his mother that it was only for his friend (Matthieu), and for his country, Flamin had meant to die; that he repented his unjust jealousy, and bewailed the friendship he had trifled away; and that she had sent for him for the very reason that she might conduct him to the arms of his true mother, and before the face of an afflicted sister. It had been this morning a human weakness, that the frozen limb of friendship, his heart, had been a little more cold and unfeeling towards Flamin, when he heard of his deliverance from imprisonment,--but it was now, at evening, the part of human kindness, that Flamin's great resolve to die restored, like a chilblain ointment, to his stiff heart warmth and motion. His inner being stirred itself mightily, welled up, overflowed his crushed resentment, and the image of the youthful friend rose up and said: "Victor, give thy hand again to thy school-friend,--O, he has suffered so much, and acted so nobly!" Tears shot from his quivering eyes, as he resolved to ascend the observatory, and say to his old favorite, "Let it be forgotten,--come, we will go together to thy sister." He went alone up to the tower,--intending to present him to the lady afterward. The Parson's wife flew off some minutes before Victor started, to inform and bring his two sisters, and send for the blind Julius to be conducted from the city, that no link might be missing in the golden necklace of love. What a Jacob's ladder, on which every minute is a higher round, is set up this night on the swinging earth, whereon good beings climb up one after another!--