With the voice and gestures of a madman, Pepusch now flung himself upon his friend's breast, and cried out, in heart-rending tones,--"She is dying! dying for you, unlucky one! Quick!--save her! You can do it--save her for yourself, and let me perish in my despair!" Pepusch ran off so fast that Peregrine had lost sight of him on the instant; and now a fearful foreboding came over him, that his friend's mad behaviour must have been occasioned by something terrible which had happened to the little-one: whereupon he hastened back to the city. On entering his house, he was met by the old woman, loudly lamenting that the poor princess was on the sudden taken violently ill, and was dying. Mr. Swammer himself had gone after the most celebrated physician in Frankfort. With the feelings of death at his heart, he crept into Mr. Swammer's room that was opened to him by the old woman. There lay the little-one upon a sofa, pale and stiff like a corse; and it was not till he knelt down and bent over her that he perceived her gentle breathing. No sooner had he touched her icy hand, than a painful smile played about her lips, and she lisped,-- "Is it you, my sweet friend? Have you come to see her once again, who loves you so unspeakably,--who dies, alas! because she cannot breathe without you?" Dissolving in sorrow, Peregrine poured himself forth in protestations of the tenderest love, and repeated, that nothing in the world was so dear to him that he would not sacrifice it to her. Out of words grew kisses, but in these kisses again words, like the breathings of love, were distinguishable. "You know, my Peregrine, how much I love you. I can be yours; you, mine,--I can recover on the spot--you will see me bloom again in my youthful splendour, like a flower refreshed by the morning dew, and joyfully lifting up his drooping head--but--give me up the prisoner, my dear, beloved Peregrine, or else you will see me perish, before your eyes, in unutterable death-pangs.----Peregrine--I can no more--it is all over!" With this she sank back upon the cushions, from which she had half raised herself; her bosom heaved tumultuously up and down, as if, in the death-pangs; her lips grew bluer, and her eyes seemed to break. In wild anguish Peregrine caught at his neckcloth, from which Master Flea now leapt, of his own accord, upon the white neck of the little-one, exclaiming, in a tone of the deepest grief--"I am lost I!" Peregrine stretched out his hand to catch the Master, but suddenly it seemed as if some invisible power held back his arm; and far other thoughts ran through his head than those which till now had occupied it.