This is the stock whence has sprung the present Confederation of twenty-two free states; but the stock nearly perished at the root from a little worm of discord in 1481, when the Confederates quarrelled at Stans over the admission to the Union (which then already numbered eight members) of the towns of Fribourg and Neuchâtel, and perhaps also over the division of the spoil that they had lately wrung from Charles the Bold. The Diet had already debated for three days, and had broken up on the evening of the third with what seemed little chance of peace: the morrow threatened secession, and most likely civil war. Nicolas von der Flüe (often called affectionately Bruder Klaus; his real name was Löwenbrugger) was born at Flühli, where the Melch Thal joins the Aa valley, in 1417; and after many years of active life, including some experience of war, retired, in about his fiftieth year, to a hermitage in the gorge of the river a few minutes' walk distant from his native village, where he is said to have subsisted solely on the Sacramental Wafer, of which he partook once a month. He died in 1487, and was afterwards beatified, and in the course of last century, sainted. It so happened that his Confessor in 1481 was the head parish priest of Stans, a certain Heini Ingrund; who, early in the morning of the day succeeding the break-up of the Diet, sought out Nicolas in his hermitage, and obtained from him a message to the deputies urging reconciliation and peace. Armed with this exhortation he then hastened back to Stans, where he arrived, as we are told, all wet with perspiration, and hurriedly made the round of the inns where the deputies were still lodged, and prevailed on them, by his tears and entreaties, to meet yet once again in consultation to hear the secret message of Brother Klaus. The words of this are not reported, but its effect was immediate and startling; in less than an hour the irreconcilables were reconciled; and the morning, which rose so gloomily with presage of disaster and dissolution, finally resulted in greater strength and union, as ratified in the Convention of Stans. A picture was painted by command of the government of Nidwalden, and may still be seen in a passage in the Rathhaus at Stans. It is curiously unhistorical in character, for Nicolas is here represented as appearing before the Diet in person, whereas nothing is better attested than that he merely sent a messenger of peace. Stans itself has other points of interest; the house of Arnold von Winkelried has been already alluded to; and there is a statue of the hero in the middle of the market-place, and another, with a fountain, near the church. Like most little towns in this part of Switzerland--like Sarnen, Arth, and Altdorf--the place is delightfully quaint and old-fashioned, with its often painted houses, and its wide-projecting eaves. Above it towers the Stanserhorn, with perhaps more bulk than shape; whilst a mile or