ng dark; we must make haste. And the donkey’ll
carry you as nice as can be; you’ll see.”

He lifted Maggie as he spoke, and set her on the donkey. She felt
relieved that it was not the old man who was going with her, but she had
only a trembling hope that she was really going home.

“Here’s your pretty bonnet,” said the younger woman, putting it on
Maggie’s head; “and you’ll say we’ve been very good to you, won’t you?
and what a nice little lady we said you were.”

“Oh, yes, thank you,” said Maggie; “I’m very much obliged to you. But I
wish you’d go with me, too.” She thought that anything was better than
going with one of the dreadful men alone.

“Ah, you’re fondest of me, aren’t you?” said the woman. “But I can’t go;
you’ll go too fast for me.”

It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the donkey,
holding Maggie before him, and no nightmare had ever seemed to her more
horrible. When the woman had patted her on the back, and said “Good-by,”
the donkey set off at a rapid walk along the lane towards the point
Maggie had come from an hour ago.

At last--oh, sight of joy!--this lane, the longest in the world, was
coming to an end, was opening on a broad highroad, where there was
actually a coach passing! And there was a finger-post at the
corner,--she had surely seen that finger-post before,--“To St. Ogg’s, 2
miles.”

The gypsy really meant to take her home, then; he was probably a good
man, after all, and might have been rather hurt at the thought that she
didn’t like coming with him alone. This idea became stronger as she felt
more and more certain that she knew the road quite well. She was
thinking how she might open a conversation with the injured gypsy, when,
as they reached a cross-road, Maggie caught sight of some one coming on
a white-faced horse.

“Oh, stop, stop!” she cried out. “There’s my father! Oh, father,
father!”

The sudden joy was almost painful, and before her father reached her,
she was sobbing. Great was Mr. T