knee, and resting her fore-paws lovingly upon his breast.

Frederick neither observed nor felt the movement of his favorite;
his thoughts were absent from the present--absent from the earth!
They were wandering in the unknown future, with the spirits of those
he longed to see again in the Elysian fields.

The wailing music of his flute expressed the lamentation of his
soul, and his eyes filled with tears as he raised them to the bust
of Voltaire, gazing at it with a look of pain until the melody was
finished. Then abruptly turning, half unwillingly, half angrily, he
returned the flute to the box, and stole away, covering his face
with his hands, as if to hide his emotion from himself.

"Now we have finished with the dead, and the living claim our
thoughts," sighed the king. "What an absurd thing is the human
heart! It will never grow cold or old; always pretending to a spark
of the fire which that shameful fellow Prometheus stole from the
gods. What an absurdity! What have I, an old fellow, to do with the
fire of Prometheus, when the fire of war will soon rage around me,"
At this instant the door gently opened. "What do you want, Muller?
What do you poke your stupid face in here for?" said the king.

"Pardon me, your majesty," replied the footman, "the Baron von Arnim
begs for an audience."

"Bid him enter," commanded the king, sinking back in his old, faded
velvet arm-chair. Resting his chin upon his staff, he signed to the
baron, who stood bowing upon the threshold, to approach. "Well,
Arnim, what is the matter? What papers have you there?"