that the night would come. Still, it seemed to her that she
had been walking a very great distance indeed, and it was really
surprising that the common did not come within sight.

At last, however, the green fields came to an end, and Maggie found
herself looking through the bars of a gate into a lane with a wide
margin of grass on each side of it. She had never seen such a wide lane
before, and, without her knowing why, it gave her the impression that
the common could not be far off; perhaps it was because she saw a donkey
with a log to his foot feeding on the grassy margin, for she had seen a
donkey with that pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow Common when she had
been across it in her father's gig. She crept through the bars of the
gate and walked on with new spirit, though not without haunting images
of Apollyon, and a highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in
yellow with a mouth from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers.
For poor little Maggie had at once the timidity of an active
imagination, and the daring that comes from over-mastering impulse. She
had rushed into the adventure of seeking her unknown kindred, the
gypsies; and now she was in this strange lane, she hardly dared look on
one side of her, lest she should see the diabolical blacksmith in his
leathern apron grinning at her with arms akimbo. It was not without a
leaping of the heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare legs
sticking up, feet uppermost, by the side of a hillock; they seemed
something hideously preternatural,--a diabolical kind of fungus; for she
was too much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes and
the dark shaggy head attached to them. It was a boy asleep, and Maggie
trotted along faster and more lightly, lest she should wake him; it did
not occur to her that he was one of her friends the gypsies, who in all
probability would have very genial manners. But the fact was so, for at
the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little semi-circular
black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, which was to be her
refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued her in civilized
life. She even saw a tall female figure by the column of smoke,
doubtless the gypsy-mother, who provided the tea and other groceries; it
was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more delight. But it
was startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after all, and not on a
common; indeed, it was rather disappointing