The window was by no means so high as those in the guard-house, and I looked with curiosity through the bars. The prospect might have been worse. True, a high and perfectly blank wall shut out the view to the left, but on the right I could see into a court planted with trees, in which at no great distance was a two-storyed house presenting a gable covered entirely with vines. Behind the house there seemed to be a garden: at least I could catch glimpses of fruit-trees in blossom. All this had a very lovely and peaceful appearance in the dim light of the spring evening; and the shrill twittering of the swallows that skimmed in flocks past my window, might have made me forget that I was a tenant of a prison, had I not been painfully reminded of it by the sharp angle of one of the bars against which I had pressed my forehead. I seized the bar with both my hands, and shook it with my whole force. Six months of confinement had not deprived my muscles of their strength, as I well perceived. I felt as if with one wrench I could bring away the whole grating. Did I deceive myself, or did it yield a little? I was not mistaken; either the screws were loose, or the wood-work decayed; I could not at the moment determine which; but this seemed no grating that could hold me. My heart beat with the exertion and the joyful surprise. I had vowed to myself that they should not keep me seven years! But caution! it was not the grating alone that made a prisoner of me. Were the grating away, there was a depth of at least thirty feet to the stone pavement of the court. And were I safely down, there were doubtless other difficulties to overcome, and a baffled attempt at escape might make my position incalculably worse. I heard a rustling in the passage. Footsteps drew near and came to my door. I sprang back from the window and stood in the centre of the room, when there was a rattling of keys on the outside, the door opened, and a man of tall stature entered, passing the turnkey, and the door was closed after him. He stood for a moment at the threshold, and then approached me with a peculiar light step. From the ruddy evening clouds there still fell a pale rosy light into the room; in this rosy glow I always see him again when I think of him--and how often do I think of him, with the deepest emotions of gratitude and love! Over the table at which I am writing these words, hangs his portrait, painted by a beloved hand. It is a most perfect likeness. It would recall to my memory every feature, every line, were it possible that I could forget them. And now, did I close my eyes, he would stand before me again as he stood on that evening, in the rosy sunset light, and not less clearly would I hear his voice, whose soft, deep tone I then heard for the first time, and whose first word was one of pity and sympathy. "Poor youth!"