ut come by in
the gig and take her up! Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or Mr.
Greatheart, or Saint George who slew the dragon on the half-pennies,
would happen to pass that way! But Maggie thought with a sinking heart
that these heroes were never seen in the neighborhood of Saint Ogg's;
nothing very wonderful ever came there.

Maggie Tulliver, you perceive, was by no means that well-trained,
well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine
necessarily is in these days; she had only been to school a year at
Saint Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the
dictionary; so that in traveling over her small mind you would have
found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge. She
could have informed you that there was such a word as "polygamy," and
being also acquainted with "polysyllable," she had deduced the
conclusion that "poly" meant "many"; but she had had no idea that
gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and her thoughts were the
oddest mixture of clear-eyed acumen and blind dreams.

Her ideas about the gypsies had undergone a rapid modification in the
last five minutes. From having considered them very respectful
companions, amenable to instruction, she had begun to think that they
meant perhaps to kill her as soon as it was dark, and cut up her body
for gradual cooking; the suspicion crossed her that the fierce-eyed old
man was in fact the Devil, who might drop that transparent disguise at
any moment, and turn either into a grinning blacksmith, or else a
fiery-eyed monster with dragon's wings. It was no use trying to eat the
stew, and yet the thing she most dreaded was to offend the gypsies, by
betraying her extremely unfavorable opinion of them; and she wondered,
with a keenness of interest that no theologian could have exceeded,
whether, if the Devil were really present, he would know her thoughts.

"What! you don't like the smell of it, my dear," said the young woman,
observing that Maggie did not even take a spoonful of the stew. "Try a
bit, come."

"No, thank you," said Maggie, summoning all her force for a desperate
effort, and trying to smile in a friendly way. "I haven't time, I think;
it seems getting darker. I think I must go home now, and come again
another day, and then I can bring you a basket with some jam-tarts and
things."

Maggie rose from her seat as she threw out this illusory prospect,
devoutly hoping that Apollyon was gullible; but h