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. "She wanted you to give up your delightful time with me--this Saturday to which we have been looking forward for such a long time--just to sit with your mother?" "That's it, Floss; that's the truth, Floss. Oh, Floss, how am I to bear it?" "And you ran away then?" "Yes, I ran away, I just could do nothing else; I couldn't give up my afternoon with you. It is all very well to talk of filial affection, but the deepest affection of my heart is given to you, Floss." "That's very kind of you," said Flossie, but she did not speak with the intense rapture that Nesta expected. "Aren't you awfully, awfully shocked about it all?" said Nesta, noticing the tone, and becoming annoyed by it. "I am dreadfully sorry that anything should have occurred to prevent your coming to me; but it does seem fair that you should sometimes be with your mother. When my darling old mothery has a headache I like to sit with her and bathe her forehead with eau de Cologne." "Oh, that's all very well," said Nesta, "and so would I like to sit with my dear mothery, if she only had a headache once a month or so; but when it is every day, and all day long, and all night too, you get about tired of it." "I expect you do," said Flossie, who was not at all strong-minded, and was easily brought round to Nesta's point of view. "Well, at any rate, here you are, and we'll try and have all the fun we can. Oh, do look at those donkeys down there, and the crowd of men, and girls and boys. Isn't it gay?" "I wonder if we can get into the tower," said Nesta.