The next year, up to the autumn of 1859, was the very best and happiest of his short life, and during the summer we soon began to hope once more that he might after all perhaps get well. He was much out of doors, able to work in his own little garden, and the healthy exercise, the life in the open air gave him for the moment quite a blooming appearance that might well delude us with false hopes. None who saw him trot about, with his gardening tools flung across his shoulder, his little face flushed and glowing, beneath the straw hat perched jauntily on his fair curls,--no one who saw him thus could have guessed what his sufferings had hitherto been, nor have suspected how soon he was again to be their victim. For that short period his appetite improved, and he seemed able to satisfy it without becoming a prey to the agonising pains with which the digestive process had for so long been almost invariably accompanied. During the harvesting he was in his glory; sometimes out in the fields for hours, taking an active part in the proceedings, and so lively, and joyous, and full of fun, it did everyone good to see him. Thus the summer went by, but all at once in October Otto was seized with an attack of pain, even more violent and spasmodic than any of the preceding ones, and this being repeated and becoming of very frequent recurrence, a great specialist was consulted, who declared that an operation was necessary. This, although attended with considerable danger, was successfully performed in March, 1860, the long and painful examinations that preceded it, and that were not always carried out under anæsthetics, having been most heroically borne. But the results were not such as had been anticipated. Hardly had the little patient left his bed, before the attacks of pain began again with redoubled violence, to the consternation of the doctors, who felt their skill completely baffled by this unexpected occurrence. The sympathy shown by the good townspeople at the time of the operation was most touching. Sometimes there was quite a little throng gathered all day in front of the iron railings before the Castle, to hear the latest tidings. I have told of the deep interest the dear boy took in my confirmation, which took place that same summer. In the little volume of the “Imitation,” which he gave me on that day, I asked him to write a few words, and without a moment’s pause, he took his pen, and wrote in his firm clear characters:--“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”--Otto. The gospel of Love had passed into his flesh and blood, had become part of his inmost being.