Like GRUMIO, I might have told you, in detail, all this and something more-but to as little purpose-were I not deterred by the remembrance that my business is with Italy. Therefore, like GRUMIO's story, it "shall die in oblivion."

From Frazer's Magazine.

THE CHAMBER OF THE BELL.

CHAPTER 1.

last described, stood a low and small erection of stone, parted by this city of the dead from the living town of Nienburg; which, cut off by an angle of its own vineclad eminence from all view of this dreary necropolis, was further enlivened by a cheerful stream, which swept swiftly and smilingly at its foot, hurrying to cast its pure and sparkling waters into the bosom of the Rhine. A few light craft, moored along the shore, heaved lazily upon the current, and the nets of the fishers spread upon the bank sufficiently denoted the uses of the little fleet.

dark wood, or forced its way through the living network of the swinging branches. None ventured there at nightfall: the goatherd drove home his flock, the woodsman laid by his axe, and the benighted fowler hastened to escape into the open country, without venturing to cast one glance behind upon the scenes of his day's sport.

Beyond the town, in the opposite direcTHE events which we are about to re-tion to the ruins, spread one of those fine late occurred in a small and obscure Ger- old forests to which Germany is indebted man town, which, for our own convenience, for so much of her prosperity and so many we will designate Nienburg. Who, in the of her superstitions; and where the warm present day, is unacquainted with the general sun and the flying clouds produced the outline of the petty towns of the "Father-most fantastic effects, as they grappled for land ?" Suffice it, that Nienburg formed power above the stern old trees, spread over no exception to the rule, but showed its the rarely occurring glades, or succeeded narrow streets of tall, many-gabled, and each other upon the dancing leaves. The picturesque-looking houses, its dark, mys- blast which had howled its defiance over terious churches, its long lines of convent the neighboring ruins, where it beat freely walls, its close and irregular-shaped places, against the sharp rock and the rigid maand its motley population of peasants,sonry, took another aud a wilder tone as monks, soldiers, beguines, and beggars. it penetrated into the mystic depths of the As regarded its geography, it was seated at the base of one of two conical hills; that immediately in its rear being cultivated to nearly two-thirds of its height, and planted on the southern side with vines, while the more lofty and more distant eminence was crowned by the mouldering remains of what had evidently once been a formidable stronghold. Upon this rock no trace of Such was the position of the little town, vegetation could be detected; all was arid, to some of whose inhabitants we are about bleak, and desolate; the crude and abrupt to introduce our readers. It was evening, outline of the height being broken in many and a bright moon was paving the river places by the remains of cyclopean mason- with flakes of silver, which looked like the ry, indicating the extent and direction of armor of some water-giant, beneath which the outworks, which, on the more accessi- his huge frame was quivering with desire ble sides of the acclivity, descended almost to visit the tranquil earth that slept so to the valley. Portions of now mouldering peacefully beside him. The breeze was towers, blending their hoary tints with that sighing through the vines, and heaving asideof the stones on which they had been seat-their large glossy leaves and delicate tened for centuries, afforded shelter to the foul drils; the laughter of children and the birds of carnage and darkness, whose shrill screams and hoarse hootings swelled and quivered upon the night-wind, like the wailings of the dead over the ruins of their former pride. The valley or gorge between the two hills was scarcely more cheerful than the castled height which frowned above it, for it was occupied throughout its whole extent with graves; save that, immediately under the shadow of the eminence

voices of women might be heard at intervals; and here and there, upon the bosom of the stream, rested a bright red glare which was reflected upon the trembling current. The fishermen were busy, plying their trade by torchlight.

Upon the very verge of the town stood a house, separated from the street by a high wall inclosing a spacious garden, laid out with scrupulous care and almost painful

formality. Flowers of every scent, and of hands and arms faultless. Her face wore every color, blossomed in minute patches a pained expression, as though the sorrows of the most grotesque and varied shapes; which had passed over her had never been trim-cut hedges of yew, with their outline forgotten, and as though she did not yet bebroken at intervals by strange uncouth fig-lieve them to be over. At the moment in ures, clipped into deformity from the same which we are describing her, she was buried material; monstrous statutes of discolored in deep and evidently painful thought: even stone, and of proportions which defied cri- her knitting, that everlasting resource of a ticism, mounted upon square pedestals; German woman, was thrown aside, and she basins, fringed with water-plants and peo- sat with her arms crossed upon her bosom, pled with gold-fish; and paths, smoothly and her head bowed down, as though her and brightly gravelled, formed the matériel reflections were too heavy a burden for her of this pleasance; in the midst of which to support upright. Her brows were knit stood the house, with its tall gable turned together, and her thin lips compressed, towards the street, the heavy beams of its while she beat upon the floor with her foot roof carved at the extremities into whimsi- rapidly and feverishly, as if in this monotocal finials, and its leaden gyrgoyles grin-nous movement she found vent for the feelning like an assemblage of demon heads, ing by which she was oppressed. beneath the shadow of the slender cupola which supported the vane.

Nor did the appearance of the mansion within belie its outward promise. It was spacious and cleanly. No accessory to comfort was wanting. The high-backed chairs, whose carving was terminated by a rude representation of the family crest, were well cushioned. There was a soft carpet on the centre of the floor; family portraits were pannelled into the walls; and the doors and windows were screened by heavy draperies of fringed damask. Every thing bore the stamp of extreme care and scrupulous management. There were birds and flowers upon a table, which stood within the deep bay of an immense window looking upon the garden from the apartment where our story is to begin; and upon a second, drawn near to the porcelain stove, which occupied an angle of the room, were placed a lamp, some female working materials, such as Berlin wool, colored silks, and a half-knitted stocking; a few books, and some fishing apparatus.

On one side of the stove sat a female, of about five-and-thirty years old. She was comely but not handsome; her eyes were fine and clear, but the dark brows by which they were overhung almost met in the centre, forming that waving line beneath the forehead so prized by the modern Greeks, but which gives such a harshness to the countenance. There was, moreover, a terseness and decision about the lines of her mouth which accorded well with those dark brows; and her head was seated upon her shoulders with a majesty which would have become an empress. Her complexion was perfectly fair, but its freshness was gone; her teeth were beautiful, and her

She was still in this attitude when the door was suddenly opened, and she hastily roused herself, and resumed the abandoned knitting.

The intruder was a fine strongly-built man, some five years her junior, and it was easy to decide at a glance that they were nearly related; there were the same thick continuous brows, the same stern expression about the mouth, the same high forehead surmounted by masses of rich brown hair, the same majestic carriage of the head; but all these features which, in the case of the female, produced an effect almost repelling, made of the man a noble specimen of masculine beauty. Nevertheless, it was a fearful beauty, and wore the brightness of the lurid vapor which veils the summer thunder. There was a light in his large brown eyes which, even in his calmest moments, betrayed the fiery spirit that slept within, and a scorn in the curve of his thin lips which gave a bitterness to their harshness.

ed tightly about his fingers a trout-line found himself, at the age of sixteen, under which he had caught up from the table; the tutelage of his mother, with, for all patri"I have already warned you that I will mony, the house at Nienburg, a small eshear no more upon this subject. Do Itate in the neighborhood, and the moiety of ever thwart your wishes? Do I ever con- her jointure, scrupulously divided between trol your amusements? Do I ever dictate himself and his sister at the death of their to your affections? You may marry, if you last parent. The young man, like all the will, the veriest boor in Nienburg: your other males of his race, panted for a milidestiny will be of your own seeking, and tary life; but the old Countess von Königyou are old enough to exert your free-will; stein positively negatived his inclination. but I will be equally unfettered. I respect- He was the last hope of the family; and as ed the prejudices of my mother, because she looked upon the noble promise of his she was my mother; but I will brook no magnificent person, she had proud dreams more womanly dictation. Be warned in of the total restoration of their house by his time." alliance with some high-born and wealthy heiress.

"The daughter of a fisherman!" exclaimed the lady, scornfully, as she raised her eyes to his.

Meanwhile, the high-spirited Elric led what was, for him, a life of slow torture. The young count sprang a pace towards Denied the education suited to his rank by her, with a red spot burning upon either the utter inability of the countess to meet cheek; but he instantly checked himself, the expense of one of the universities, he and said, with a laugh of bitter scorn, was placed under the care and tuition of a "Even so, my lady countess, the daughter priest attached to the principal church of of a fisherman; and you have yet to learn Nienburg, and soon mastered the very limthat the subtle essence which men call ited stock of erudition which was boasted mind can be diffused through the being of by the good father, while his hours at home a fisher's daughter as freely and fully as were even more heavy and unprofitable. though that of a landgrave's heiress; that Disappointed in her ambition, crippled in her the sublime means, and soured by her trials, the widow"Supper waits, Herr Graf," said his sis-ed countess, weak in mind and tyrannical ter, rising haughtily from her seat, and by nature, expended upon trifles the energy leading the way to an inner apartment. and order which were better suited to matThe meal passed in silence. The pres-ters of importance. Her pleasure ground ence of the servants prevented any allusion was typical of her whole life. She had not to the subject which occupied the minds of one enlarged idea; not one great percepboth, and neither was willing to make an tion; but pressed her iron rod upon rushes effort to banish it. Under such circum- and weeds. All was monotony and substances it is, therefore, scarcely surprising missiveness in the old mansion; and it will that on their return to the drawing-room be easily understood that an under-current the brother and sister at once recurred to of lassitude and disgust soon destroyed the the obnoxious theme. beautiful unity of nature which is so blessIt is, however, time that we should ex-ed an attribute of the young. Father Eberplain to the reader the position of the no-hard preached obedience to the revolting ble orphans. Count Elric Königstein was spirit of the youth, and he obeyed in so far the last representative of a proud and an- as by word and action he could follow the cient family, which, originally both power-counsel he received, but in the depths of ful and wealthy, had become impoverished his spirit he rebelled. No word of enby the loyalty and improvidence of its couragement, no sentence of endearment, chiefs, and, as a natural consequence, had ever escaped the pinched lips of the counlost its influence with its riches. Geschenke tess. Like many other weak persons, she halten die Freundschaft warm had for generations been the motto of their race; and they had so long been distinguished for an open hand and an ungrudging generosity, that at length they found themselves with nothing more to give.

The Thirty Years' War had cost Count Elric the small remains of the family treasure and the life of his father; and he

believed that dignity consisted in an absence of all concession, and gratified her vanity by adopting as her creed that an absence of rebuke should satisfy all around her, but that none should venture to presume upon her indulgence.

In this dreary way did she fritter away her age, but the evil did not end there; for she wasted along with it the fresh youth

and pure spirits of her children, already | hour, beyond her mother's presence; and, sufficiently unfortunate from their excep- careless of herself, she had necessarily foltionable position. In her daughter she lowed the monotonous routine of her home found a docile pupil; nor did Stephanie duties, until she had ceased to see to how resist, even when her mother dashed the poor and pitiful a result the majority of cup of happiness from her lips by refusing them led. The spring of her life-if such her consent to a marriage which would a life can be said ever to have had a have crowned her dearest hopes. The spring-was over; the little vanities of her suitor, unexceptionable as he was in point sex had ceased to occupy her; and she of character, income, and disposition, pursued the same dreary round of occupa failed in exhibiting-like the Königsteins tions and anxieties, eventually as much -his nine quarterings, and was rejected from choice as custom. accordingly. Stephanie, as we have said, submitted; but she was blighted in heart from that day forth; and-last and worst misery for the young-she ceased to hope in the future. What could it offer to her which would remedy the past? And with her occasional bursts of cheerfulness fled the sole charm of home to her boy-brother. Yet still he controlled himself, for his was not a nature to waste its strength on trifles which he felt to be unworthy of the strife. There was a fire within, but it was buried deep beneath the surface, like that of a volcano, which, suffering even for years the vicinity of man and of man's works, slowly collects its deadly power, and then in one dread effort spreads ruin and desolation on all within its influence.

The

If Elric, as he turned away from his mother's grave, hoped for a brighter home or a more congenial companionship, it was not long ere he was fully undeceived. Nothing could arouse Stephanie from the moral torpor into which she had fallen; and, never doubting that her privilege of eldership would leave her right of control unquestioned, she endeavored to compel her young and fiery brother to the same wearisome, heart-sickening monotony of which she had herself long ceased to feel the bitterness In this attempt she was destined, however, signally to fail. Crippled as he was in his worldly career by the comparative poverty in which he found himself, Elric was, nevertheless, like the wounded eagle, which, although it cannot At length the countess died, and her soar against the sun, may still make its aërie children mourned for her as we all mourn in the free air and upon the mountainover accustomed objects of which we are heights. His strength was crushed but not suddenly deprived. They missed her every subdued. It is impossible to say what he day and every hour; they missed her harsh might have been had his impetuous passions and cold accents; they missed her imperi- been diffused and rightly directed. ous orders; her minute reproaches; her leaping torrent may be diverted into a restless movements. They felt themselves channel, and turned to purposes of usealone; abandoned to self-government after fulness, in which its headlong fury, exyears of unquestioning subjection; the hausting itself by degrees, may leave it to world of their own home appeared too vast flow on ultimately in a clear and placid to them when they were called upon to in-stream; while, unheeded and unguided, it habit it without the presence of the ruling spirit which had hitherto sufficed to fill its void. Nor did the orphans draw more closely together as they walked away, hand in hand, from beside the grave of their last parent. They had no longer a feeling in Many years, however, had passed over common. Stephanie was like the tree the orphans in dreamy listlessness. Once prostrated by the lightning, and crushed the young man had endeavored to condole into the earth by the weight of its own fall: with his sister upon the heart-stroke inElric was like the sturdy sapling braving flicted by the prejudices of their mother; the tempest, and almost wooing it to burst, but his sympathy awakened no response in that he might feel its wild breath rioting her cicatrized heart. She even applauded among the leaves which now lay hushed the rigor which had saved her from the reand motionless upon their boughs. More-morse of disgracing her family, and urged over, debarred the healthful and exciting upon him the necessity of being careful exercises of her brother, the young count-that her sacrifice should not be made in ess had never passed a day, and scarcely an vain.

must prove only a source of ruin and destruction. And such was the moral condition of Count Elric. He felt his strength, but he was yet ignorant of its power, and utterly unskilled in its control.

This was the last attempt of Elric to beating heart, to take a mental survey of open up the springs of family affectionner distant neighborhood. and he felt his failure the more bitterly. that he yearned for a companionship o spirit. Even the worthy Father Eberhard was lost to him; for he had been called to a distant mission and had quitted Nienburg. in all probability, for ever. He looked around him, and envied the busy inhabitants of the little town, who pursued alike their avocations and their amusements in common; while he sighed as he remembered that from these he was alike shut out. could not, now that he had attained the age of manhood, volunteer a partnership in the social occupations of the plebeian citizens with whom he had been forbidden all association during his youth, and with whom he could now never hope to meet upon equal terms.

"It cannot be the gräfine Rosa," she murmured to herself: "for although Elric could row to the schloss in three hours, he could not return in the same time against the current; nor would the proud countess encourage him: he is too poor. No, no -it cannot be the gräfine Rosa, Baron Kadschan's daughter?-Equally impossible. Elric has no horses, and there are five long leagues between us. Constance von HarHetheim?-Still more improbable. She is to take the vows next year in Our Lady of Mercy. Poor, too, as himself, and as noble. No, no, her family would not permit it. And we know none other! Unless, indeed, the dark-eyed daughter of the Burgomeister of Nienburg. But I am mad-he DARE not!-1 would rather see him stretched out yonder in the death-valley."

The eye of the proud countess flamed, and the deep red glow burned on her cheek and brow; she clenched her slender hands tightly together, and her breath came

emotion, and whispered to herself with a bitter laugh, which sounded strangely in that silent room, “No, no, he DARE not.”

64

CHAPTER 11.

Whist, whist, Mina; here is the Herr Graf!"

The solitary young man turned, in his isolation, to Nature; and Nature is a marvellous comforter to those who can appreciate her consolations and her endearments. He threw aside his books; they had long ceased to afford him either amuse-thick and fast; but she soon controlled her ment or instruction; he abandoned his sister to her solitary home. She scarely seemed to remark his absence, save when it interfered with the clock-work regularity of the little household; and he rushed away to the forest depths, and flung himself down beneath the shadows of the tall trees, aud thought until thought became madness; and then he seized his gun, and pursued the game through the tangled underwood, A joyous and graceful peal of laughter until, in fatigue of body he forgot his bit- was the sole, and evidently incredulous reterness of soul; or plunged once more ply to this warning. There was no mistakinto the sunshine, and paddling his boating the origin of that melodious mirth: you into the centre of the stream, waged war felt at once that the lips from which it had upon the finny tribes that peopled it. His gushed were fresh, and rich, and youthful; return, when laden with these spoils, was and that the eyes which danced in their always welcome to the countess, for she own light as it rang out were eyes such as was too good a housewife not to appreciate poets dream of when they have visions of such an assistance to their slender means; but suddenly this resource, upon which she had begun to calculate in her daily arrangements, failed her all at once; nor could Elric, when questioned upon the subject, offer such reason for his defection as tended to satisfy her mind. With the true perception of a woman, she felt that there was a mystery. Where could Elric spend the long hours in which he was daily absent from home? and with whom?

a world unknown of sin.

"Once more, Mina, dear Mina, I vow by my patron-saint! here is the Herr Graf."

These words were uttered by a young girl in the costume of a peasant, with a round, good-humored, sun-burnt face, bare arms, bronzed by exposure to the weather, and one of those stunted and muscular figures which seem to herald an existence of toil and hardship. She was standing near a cluster of marsh-willows which overSuddenly a suspicion grew upon her, shadowed a little ruulet, that, descending and a deep crimson flush overspread her from the height above the town, swept ou usually pale cheek as she began, with award to the river. As Elric, for it was of