no spot could he
pray more fervently, and the boon which he most ardently besought from
Heaven was that it would spare him the fate of his insane mother, hold
aloof the fiend which in many a gloomy hour he saw stretching a hand
toward him.

Here, too, he sought to penetrate the nature of death. In this room,
clothed with the sable hue of mourning, he felt that alreadv, while on
earth, he had fallen into its all-levelling power. Here his mind, like
that of a dying man's, grasped for brief intervals what life had offered
and what awaited him beyond the confines of this short earthly existence,
in eternity.

While thus occupied, the sovereign, accustomed to speculation,
encountered many a dangerous doubt, but he only needed to gaze at the
crucified Saviour to find the way again to the promises of his Church.

The last years had deprived him of so large a portion of the most
valuable possessions and the best ornaments of his life, and inflicted,
both in wardly and outwardly, such keen suffering, that it was easy for
him to perceive what a gain death would bring.

What it could take from him was easily lost; the relief it promised to
afford no power, science, or art here on earth could procure for
him--release from cruel suffering and oppressive cares.

While he was learning the German language the name "Friend Hein," which
he heard applied to death, perplexed him; now he thought that he
understood it, for the man with the scythe wore to him also the face of a
friend, who when the time had come would not keep him waiting long. As he
thought of his wife, of whose death this day was the anniversary, he felt
inclined to envy her. What he had lost by her decease seemed very little
to others who were aware of the long periods of time during which,
separated from each other, they had gone their own ways; but he knew that
it was more than they supposed, for with Isabella he had lost the
certainty that the sincere, nay, perhaps affectionate interest of a being
united to him by the sacrament of marriage accompanied his every step.

His pleasure in life had withered with the growth of the harsh conviction
that he was no longer loved by any one for his own sake.

In this chamber, draped with sable hangings, his own heart seemed dead,
like dry wood from which only a miracle could lure green leafage again.
With the only real pity which was at his command, compassion on himself,
he rose from the kneeling posture which had become u