"In truth, Adolphus did not believe, although the evidently profound conviction of Albert shook his mind and caused in him an impression that he would gladly have shaken off, so contrary to reason did it seem to him. 'Let us make haste, the time presses,' said Albert. He then arranged in order, with rapidity and calm, several important affairs with which he was charged, relating to the principal commanderies of Germany; then, kneeling down, he offered up a short prayer; scarcely had he finished, than, rising up quickly, he seized the hand of his brother, and cried: 'Look! she is come.' Adolphus turned round, and saw Flaminia standing by the side of Albert. You who have lost some one who was dear to you, Frederick, you have remarked that, at the moment when the last sigh escapes and before the work of decay begins, the face is possessed of a calm beauty, supernatural and indefinable in its expression, that inspires an awed respect for that now lifeless form which just a moment before contained a soul. Such looked Flaminia; her figure, surrounded by a luminous atmosphere, had received from immortality an august expression. It was perfectly the form of Flaminia, such as Adolphus had known her, but it was no longer the creature that is imperfect, and subject to the attacks of time and life. It was the being imperishable who, coming forth victorious from her many trials, bore in her all the splendors of her glory. Her beauty was not that which charms by the uniformity, more or less complete, of its lineaments; no, it was the celestial beauty whose type is graven in ourselves; the beauty a single ray of which suffices to illuminate the face that hides a pure soul: this was the beauty sublime that enveloped her with its divine wings, and transfigured her face while changing its lineaments. Adolphus bent his knee before the vision. 'Had I not told you that she would come?' said Albert to his brother. 'Yes!' replied a harmonious voice, which issued from the then incorruptible lips of Flaminia. 'Yes! our love was too pure not to merit its recompense. God has permitted it; you waited for me, and I am come.' She bent slightly toward him to whom she at length was about to be united, and, surrounding him with her arms, she drew his face closer to her own, that gleamed with a celestial joy. Behind them, and contemplating them, stood Death, not under the form of fleshless skeleton, but as a radiant angel who changes bitterness into joy, and tears into smiles. His beautiful face bore the impress of grave majesty rather than of severity, softened by that infinite mercy which gives hope to repentance. The mercy and goodness of the Master who sends him shone in his look, which is so sweet to the contemplation of the soul wearied by the painful journey of life. The hour was come! At the moment when Flaminia, in a manner, took possession of Albert, the angel of Death drew near him, and while with one hand he touched his