When the first gleam of daylight played on the stream, she rose and went on deck. All the stars had gone to rest except the morning star, and even its radiance grew gradually fainter; for the young day began to don his golden festive robe. The poor mother leaned over the edge of the boat, and looked down into the water. The sky was one glow of purple, and on the stream lay the roses of the dawn. The Easter sun rose slowly above the horizon, and as its first beam struck the river a sound of solemn melancholy came upwards from its depths. "What was that?" said the woman, leaning forward to listen. A second chime broke the stillness of the morning, and soon the bell began to ring in tones of wondrous richness from the bed of the river. With the chimes, and borne on the sunbeams, which cheerfully plunged into the stream, and rose again radiant from the crystal flood, came a sweet, familiar voice to thrill the heart of the listening mother. "Jesus lives, and I in Him: Where is thy victory, O grave? Jesus lives to set me free, My captive soul His love will save; Jesus will lead me to the light, This the sure hope that cheers my night." So sang her child's clear voice in the words of the hymn which she herself had once taught her, and which the little one used to sing on Easter morning. The child's soul was still imprisoned, but now, on the day of Christ's resurrection, when the bell began to ring as the first sunbeam touched it, she felt a strange, sweet joy, that made her feel inclined to join her voice with its mellow chimes. On the great Christian festivals all bells that have sunk in rivers or lakes awake to join in the hymn of all creation, and when, among the rest, the little girl's bell began to sound, her grief and longing generally awoke afresh. But to-day with the first note her sadness suddenly vanished, and a strange joy sprang up in her heart. She folded her delicate hands, and sang the verse of her childhood. But the metal did not send the sound back to her as on other days; it pierced through the walls, and floated through the waves up to the ear and heart of her sorrowing mother. Yes, it was her child's voice; every drop of blood, every pulse-beat of her trembling body told her that. She had indeed found her little daughter's corpse; but her soul must have remained in the power of the cruel water-sprite, and had been pining all these years down in the stream, shut out from light and liberty and love. All the stories that she had heard of the imprisonment of souls, and which she had always laughed at as childish tales, came into her mind, and filled her with unspeakable anguish. Her captivity must be somehow connected with the bells, or else the chimes would not have mingled as they did with the hymn. She leaned over the edge of the boat, and looked down into the water.