ancing,
waltzing, and singing about them, followed by a large Newfoundland dog, who
boisterously jumping on her, and interrupting her, made her now scold, now
laugh, now throw herself on the carpet to play with him. She was dressed
grotesquely, in glittering robes and shawls fit for a woman; she appeared
about ten years of age. We stood at the door looking on this strange scene,
till the dog perceiving us barked loudly; the child turned and saw us: her
face, losing its gaiety, assumed a sullen expression: she slunk back,
apparently meditating an escape. I came up to her, and held her hand; she
did not resist, but with a stern brow, so strange in childhood, so
different from her former hilarity, she stood still, her eyes fixed on the
ground. "What do you do here?" I said gently; "Who are you?"--she was
silent, but trembled violently.--"My poor child," asked Adrian, "are you
alone?" There was a winning softness in his voice, that went to the heart
of the little girl; she looked at him, then snatching her hand from me,
threw herself into his arms, clinging round his neck, ejaculating--"Save
me! save me!" while her unnatural sullenness dissolved in tears.

"I will save you," he replied, "of what are you afraid? you need not fear
my friend, he will do you no harm. Are you alone?"

"No, Lion is with me."

"And your father and mother?--"

"I never had any; I am a charity girl. Every body is gone, gone for a
great, great many days; but if they come back and find me out, they will
beat me so!"

Her unhappy story was told in these few words: an orphan, taken on
pretended charity, ill-treated and reviled, her oppressors had died:
unknowing of what had passed around her, she found herself alone; she had
not dared venture out, but by the continuance of her solitude her courage
revived, her childish vivacity caused her to play a thousand freaks, and
with her brute companion she passed a long holiday, fearing nothing but the
return of the harsh voices and cruel usage of her protectors. She readily
consented to go with Adrian.

In the mean time, while we descanted on alien sorrows, and on a solitude
which struck our eyes and not our hearts, while we imagined all of change
and suffering that had intervened in these once thronged streets, before,
tenantless and abandoned, they became mere kennels for dogs, and stables
for cattle:--while we read the death of the world upon the dark fane, and
hugged ourselves in the remembrance that