The attention of George Brooke was instantly, as we have said, attracted towards her; and, although it is scarcely possible to conceive that the sight of sorrow in a woman could fail to awaken compassion in the breast of anything deserving the name of man, certain it is that less than holy feelings mingled in the sensations of him who now paused to regard her.
"Well," he thought, "I suppose Dame Fortune has determined that I shall have to fly my country, and has sent me a fair companion to cheer the hours of exile. By my life! she is a pretty creature, and as enticing as a royal banquet.--What is the matter, I wonder? A quarrel with a lover?--if so, I may help her to a better--or a lost pigeon?--if so, I'll be her dove.--Why, pretty one, what ails thee?" he continued, advancing towards her.
"I am very unhappy," sobbed the girl, with a strong foreign accent.
"I see that," replied George Brooke; "and I grieve that those bright eyes should run over. But what is the cause?"
"I know not where to go to," exclaimed the girl, clasping her hands together, and addressing her words rather to Heaven than him.
"Go to?" cried her companion, gazing at her with his wild and reckless spirit ready for any folly or for any crime. "Why, come with me, sweet one.--I will take good care of thee."
The girl looked up in his face with an inquiring glance; but there was in it no look of that deep feeling, that kindhearted benevolence, which gives confidence and hope. There was the light, half-serious, half-jesting smile, which mocks at all things, even while they are felt most weighty; the sort of scoffing carelessness with which the wicked strive to alleviate the burden of their own conscience. There was, moreover, that expression of habitual dissipation which always soon marks the man who gives himself up to vice.
The girl shook her head mournfully, and made no answer.
"Nay, nay," continued George Brooke, assuming a more serious and more feeling tone; "if any evil have really befallen you, tell me what it is, and I will help you if I can."
"You cannot," said the girl, "you cannot. I have left a very wicked old man, who brought me over to this country two years ago, to sing before the gentry and play upon the lute; and I know not where to go to."