Your hearts remained cold and insensible; the real love
has never warmed your bosom. You imagined that you read the holy
wonders of nature, with pious admiration, but, in endeavouring to find
out the condition of those wonders, even in their inmost core, yourself
destroyed that pious feeling, and the knowledge, after which you
strove, was a phantom merely, that has deceived you, like prying,
inquisitive children.

"Fools! For you the beams of the carbuncle no longer have hope or
consolation."

"Ha! ha! There is hope, there is consolation; the old one betakes
herself to the old ones; there's love! there's truth! there's
tenderness! And the old one is now really a queen, and takes her little
Swammerdamm and her little Leuwenhock into her kingdom, and there they
are princes, and wind gold thread and silver thread, and do many other
useful things."

So spoke the old Alina, who suddenly stood between the two
microscopists, clad in a strange dress, which nearly resembled the
costume of the Queen of Golconda in the opera. But Leuwenhock and
Swammerdamm had so shrunk up, that they seemed to be scarcely a span
high, and the Queen of Golconda, putting her puppets into two ivory
cradles, rocked and nursed them, and sang to them,--Lullaby, lullaby,
baby mine, &c.

During this the Princess Gamaheh and the Thistle, Zeherit, were still
kneeling on the steps of the throne. Peregrine spoke:

"Yes, beloved pair, the error is past, which disturbed your lives.
Come, dear ones, to my breast. The beam of the carbuncle will penetrate
your hearts, and you will enjoy the blessedness of Heaven."

With a cry of joy and hope, the lovers started up, and Peregrine
pressed them strongly to his glowing heart. When he released them, they
fell, transported, into each others arms; the corpse-like paleness had
vanished from their brows, and the freshness of youth bloomed on their
cheeks and sparkled in their eyes.

Master Flea, who had hitherto stood by the throne with all the gravity
of a guard of honour, suddenly resumed his natural shape, and with a
vigorous spring he leaped upon Doertje's neck, crying out, in a shrill
voice, "Old love never changes."

But, oh wonder! in the same moment, Rose lay upon Peregrine's breast,
in all her youthful beauty, beaming with the purest love, like a cherub
from Heaven.

And now the branches of the cedars rustled, the flowers lifted their
heads more loftily, soft melodies poured from the bushes, and the