Part 33 (2/2)

”Don't you see a spell is cast on hi?” said one, after the bells had ceased to be a wonder ”If he is walking, he stops short, and if he is working, the work drops and a strange fire comes in his eyes; and I have seen hiood truth, the bells seemed to have drawn a portion of Otto's life to them When the incursions of the war forced hirets were not for his injured property, but that he could not hear the bells

He was absent two years, and when he returned it was to find the cathedral alone no one knehere From that moment a settled melancholy took possession of Otto He ave up work altogether, and would sit all day with his eyes fixed on the ruined belfry

People said he was melancholy mad, and I suppose it was the truth; but he was entle patience very sad to see Histheir exile, and now his wife, unable with all her love to rouse him from his torpor, faded sloay He did not notice her sickness, and his poor numbed brain seemed imperfectly to corave, and turning from it moved slowly down the city, passed the door of his old hoates

After that he was seen in every city in Europe at different intervals Charitable people gave hied He would enter a town, take his station near a church and wait until the bells rang fordeeply,the wistful look in his eyes would ask hi,” was his only reply; and those were almost the only words any one ever heard from him, and he muttered them often to himself Years rolled over the head of the wanderer, but still his slow rohite, and his strength had failed him so much that he only tottered instead of walked, but still that wistful seeking look was in his eyes

He heard the old bells on the Rhine in his wanderings He lingered long near the belfries of the sweetest voices; but their ues only spoke to him of his lost hope

He left the river of sweet bells, and land

It was the days of cathedrals in their beauty and glory, and here he again heard the tones that he loved, but which failed to realize his own ideal

When a person fails to fulfil his ideal, his whole life seelorious and beautiful one ain finds

”Be true to the dreams of thy youth,” says a German author; and every soul is unhappy until the drea ina river in Ireland The kind-hearted boatestures to cross hih his end, anyhow,”

he rih the still evening air came the distant sound of a rim leaped to his feet and threw up his arms

”O my God,” he cried, ”found at last!”

”It's the bells of the Convent,” said the wondering ue, but answering his gesture ”They was brought frohty fine bells they are, anyhow But he isn't listening tobut the bells He merely whispered, ”Coht of my life!

Peal on, for your voices tell h the air, and as it died away so else soared aloft forever, free froles of life

[Illustration: BRESLAU]

His ideal was fulfilled now Otto lay dead, his face full of peace and joy, for the weary quest of his crazy brain was over, and the Harmony Chime had called hie of life that men call Death, we may well believe that he heard in the ascension to the celestial at bells more beautiful than the Harmony Chime

”I will relate another story,” said Mr Beal ”It is like the Har”

THE BELL-FOUNDER OF BRESLAU

There once lived in Breslau a famous bell-founder, the fame of whose skill caused his bells to be placed into the ballad of Wilhelm Muller,--

”And all his bells they sounded So full and clear and pure: He poured his faith and love in, Of that all men were sure

But of all bells that ever He cast, was one the crown, That was the bell for sinners At Breslau in the town”

He had an ambition to cast one bell that would surpass all others in purity of tone, and that should render his own name immortal