The Arched Window

From the inertness, or what we may term the vegetative character, of
his ordinary mood, Clifford would perhaps have been content to spend
one day after another, interminably,--or, at least, throughout the
summer-time,--in just the kind of life described in the preceding
pages. Fancying, however, that it might be for his benefit
occasionally to diversify the scene, Phoebe sometimes suggested that he
should look out upon the life of the street. For this purpose, they
used to mount the staircase together, to the second story of the house,
where, at the termination of a wide entry, there was an arched window,
of uncommonly large dimensions, shaded by a pair of curtains. It
opened above the porch, where there had formerly been a balcony, the
balustrade of which had long since gone to decay, and been removed.

At this arched window, throwing it open, but keeping himself in
comparative obscurity by means of the curtain, Clifford had an
opportunity of witnessing such a portion of the great world's movement
as might be supposed to roll through one of the retired streets of a
not very populous city. But he and Phoebe made a sight as well worth
seeing as any that the city could exhibit. The pale, gray, childish,
aged, melancholy, yet often simply cheerful, and sometimes delicately
intelligent aspect of Clifford, peering from behind the faded crimson
of the curtain,--watching the monotony of every-day occurrences with a
kind of inconsequential interest and earnestness, and, at every petty
throb of his sensibility, turning for sympathy to the eyes of the
bright young girl!