"True; but are you sure she has never—"
"Sure!" replied Nance, almost fiercely—"I'll take my oath on it; hasn't she always kept away from us, and ain't all the girls hating her like h——l, 'cause she's virtuous? Don't you suppose I know?"
"Good," said the gentleman; and taking a gold coin from his pocket, he gave it to Nance, who, stooping down, secreted it in her stocking; then she noiselessly opened the front door and left the house, singing in a hoarse voice, as she sped on her way towards Ann street, (where she lived,) these barbarous words:—
"The lamb to the wolf is sold, sold, sold;
No more she'll return to her fold, fold, fold—
And Sow Nance will dare another to snare,
And the wolf shall have her for gold, gold, gold!"
The gentleman (I use the word ironically, reader,) re-entered the parlor, advanced to where Fanny was seated, and laying his heavy hand upon the young girl's shoulder, glued his polluted lips to her pure cheek. She sprang from his profaning grasp with a cry of terror, and fled towards the door—it was locked! The gentleman laughed, and said—
"No, no, my pretty bird, you cannot escape from your cage so easily; and why should you wish to? Your cage shall have golden wires, and you shall be fed on delicacies, my little flutterer—so smooth the feathers of your bright wings, my dear, and sing your sweetest notes!"
Fanny burst into tears, and fell on her knees before the old libertine.—Young and innocent as she was, a dark suspicion of his purpose came like a shadow over her soul, and she cried in piteous accents—
"Pray, good sir, let me go home to my poor grandfather and my little brother—they will be expecting me, and will feel worried at my absence. Surely, sir, you will not have the heart to harm me—I am but a poor fruit girl, without father or mother. Pray let me go, sir."
That appeal, made touching by the youth and innocence of the speaker, and by her profound distress, might have melted a heart of iron—but it moved not the stony heart of the old villain, and he looked upon her with his cold, hard eyes, and his disgusting smile, as he said—
"Your tears make you doubly interesting, my sweet child. I am afraid that your poor grandfather and your little brother, as you call them, will be obliged to wait a long while for your return, let them worry ever so much at your absence. You say truly that I have not the heart to harm you, a poor fruit girl,—no, I will make a lady of you; and as you have, you say, neither father nor mother, I will supply their place, my pretty dear, and be your lover into the bargain. Those coarse garments shall be changed for silks and satins,—that shining hair shall be made radiant with gems,—jewels shall sparkle on that fair neck, and on those taper fingers,—you shall ride in a carriage, and have servants to wait on you,—and you shall sleep on a downy bed, and live in a grand house, like this. Say, will not all these fine things be better than selling fruit in the cold streets?"