"Have you no home?"
"Home!" echoed the girl. "I have never had what gentlemen like you call a home."
"But where are you going to-night?"
"To the fields—to some empty barn, if I can find one with a door unfastened, into which I may creep. I have been singing all day, and have not earned money enough to pay for a lodging."
The full moon shone broad and clear upon the girl's face. Looking at her by that silvery light, Sir Oswald saw that she was very beautiful.
"Have you been long leading this miserable life?" Sir Oswald asked her presently.
"My life has been one long misery," answered the ballad-singer.
"How long have you been singing in the streets?"
"I have been singing about the country for two years; not always in the streets, for some time I was in a company of show-people; but the mistress of the show treated me badly, and I left her. Since then I have been wandering about from place to place, singing in the streets on market-days, and singing at fairs."
The girl said all this in a dull, mechanical way, as if she were accustomed to be called on to render an account of herself.