her
left hand a little basket, of the contents of which (for it was empty)
she had apparently just disposed; and, as she stepped across the
road, the lamplight fell on a face in the first bloom of youth, and
characterised by an expression of childlike innocence and candour. It
was a face regularly and exquisitely lovely, yet something there was
in the aspect that saddened you; you knew not why, for it was not sad
itself; on the contrary, the lips smiled and the eyes sparkled. As she
now glided along the shadowy street with a light, quick step, a man,
who had hitherto been concealed by the portico of an attorney's house,
advanced stealthily, and followed her at a little distance. Unconscious
that she was dogged, and seemingly fearless of all danger, the girl went
lightly on, swinging her basket playfully to and fro, and chaunting, in
a low but musical tone, some verses that seemed rather to belong to the
nursery than to that age which the fair singer had attained.

As she came to an angle which the main street formed with a lane, narrow
and partially lighted, a policeman, stationed there, looked hard at her,
and then touched his hat with an air of respect, in which there seemed
also a little of compassion.

"Good night to you," said the girl, passing him, and with a frank, gay
tone.

"Shall I attend you home, Miss?" said the man.

"What for? I am very well!" answered the young woman, with an accent and
look of innocent surprise.

Just at this time the man, who had hitherto followed her, gained the
spot, and turned down the lane.

"Yes," replied the policeman; "but it is getting dark, Miss."

"So it is every night when I walk home, unless there's a
moon.--Good-bye.--The moon," she repeated to herself, as she walked on,
"I used to be afraid of the moon when I was a little child;" and then,
after a pause, she murmured, in a low chaunt:

"'The moon she is a wandering ghost,
That walks in penance nightly;
How sad she is, that wandering moon,
For all she shines so brightly!

"'I watched her eyes when I was young,
Until they turned my brain,
And now I often weep to think
'Twill ne'er be right again.'"

As the murmur of these words died at a distance down the lane in which
the girl had disappeared, the policeman, who had paused to listen, shook
his head mournfully, and said, while he moved on,--

"Poor thing! they should not let her always go about