“‘My dearest sir,’ said he, ‘my father is likely to do well. He will live to pray for you, and to bless you. Yes, he will bless you, though you are an Englishman, and some other hard word that the monk talked of this morning, which I have forgot, but it meant that you should not go to heaven; but he shall go to heaven, said I, for he has saved my father. Come and see him, sir, that we may be happy.’ “‘My dear, I am engaged at present with this gentleman.’ “‘But he shall come along with you; he is an Englishman, too, I fancy. He shall come and learn how an Englishman may go to heaven.’ “Mountford smiled, and we followed the boy together. “After crossing the next street, we arrived at the gate of a prison. I seemed surprised at the sight; our little conductor observed it. “‘Are you afraid, sir?’ said he. ‘I was afraid once too, but my father and mother are here, and I am never afraid when I am with them.’ “He took my hand, and led me through a dark passage that fronted the gate. When we came to a little door at the end, he tapped. A boy, still younger than himself, opened it to receive us. Mountford entered with a look in which was pictured the benign assurance of a superior being. I followed in silence and amazement. “On something like a bed, lay a man, with a face seemingly emaciated with sickness, and a look of patient dejection. A bundle of dirty shreds served him for a pillow, but he had a better support—the arm of a female who kneeled beside him, beautiful as an angel, but with a fading languor in her countenance, the still life of melancholy, that seemed to borrow its shade from the object on which she gazed. There was a tear in her eye—the sick man kissed it off in its bud, smiling through the dimness of his own—when she saw Mountford, she crawled forward on the ground, and clasped his knees. He raised her from the floor; she threw her arms round his neck, and sobbed out a speech of thankfulness, eloquent beyond the power of language. “‘Compose yourself, my love,’ said the man on the bed; ‘but he, whose goodness has caused that emotion, will pardon its effects.’ “‘How is this, Mountford?’ said I; ‘what do I see? What must I do?’