“There are; but I didn’t say a word about that to mother. She never guessed. Luckily, father was out of the room. It will be much more fun going there to-day, for we’ll see the races; that is if we are quick. But I’m sure, Nesta, I did think you’d come looking a little bit smart, and you’ve got your very oldest hat on too, and that dress.”
“Oh, if you’re ashamed of me,” began Nesta, tears springing to her blue eyes—they could always rise there at a moment’s warning.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, dear,” said Flossie, who was really deeply attached to her friend; “but whatever is it?”
“You must take me as I am, or I’ll go home again if you like,” said Nesta. “It would be much better for me to go home. I wouldn’t get into quite such an awful row as I shall get into all for love of you, if I went home now. I’ll go if you wish. I’ll just be in time to escape the very worst of the fuss. What am I to do, dear?”
“Never mind about your dress. I’d lend you something of mine, only you are twice as big.”
“Well, I’ll carry this basket,” said Nesta, picking up the tea basket. “Now, do let us go; I shan’t have an easy moment until we are well out of sight of the house.”
The girls walked on briskly. They had, for some time, to walk along the dusty road, but soon they came to a stile which led across some fields, delightfully green and inviting looking at this time of the year. The fields led again into a wood, and this wood, by an upland path, came at last to Norland’s Cliff. Norland’s Cliff was the highest point in that part of the country, and on this eminence had once been built by an eccentric Sir Guy Norland, a tower. He had built it as a sort of a vantage tower, in order to see as far round him as possible; but in the end, in a fit of madness, he had thrown himself from the tower, and his mangled body was found there on a certain winter’s night. Afterwards no one had gone near the tower except as a sort of show place; and it was, of course, supposed to be haunted, particularly at night, when Sir Guy Norland was said to ride round and round on horseback.
But it was a beautiful summer day on the present occasion, and the girls thought of no ghosts, and when they were in the shelter of the woods Nesta began to recount her wrongs.
“She has come back, the old spitfire,” she said, and she explained the whole situation.
Flossie was full of commiseration.