‘There!’ she said, pointing to the top of the square tower over the entrance to the hall, from which we had watched the arrival of the guests: it rose about nine feet only above where we now stood in the gutter--‘I _know_ I left the door open when we came down. I did it on purpose. I hate Goody Wilson. Lucky, you see!--that is if you have a head. And if you haven’t, it’s all the same: I have.’ So saying, she pointed to a sort of flying buttress which sprung sideways, with a wide span, across the angle the tower made with the hall, from an embrasure of the battlement of the hall to the outer corner of the tower, itself more solidly buttressed. I think it must have been made to resist the outward pressure of the roof of the hall; but it was one of those puzzling points which often occur--and oftenest in domestic architecture--where additions and consequent alterations have been made from time to time. Such will occasion sometimes as much conjecture towards their explanation as a disputed passage in Shakspere or Aeschylus. Could she mean me to cross that hair-like bridge? The mere thought was a terror. But I would not blench. Fear I confess--cowardice if you will:--poltroonery, not. ‘I see,’ I answered. ‘I will try. If I fall, don’t blame me. I will do my best.’ ‘You don’t think,’ she returned, ‘I’m going to let you go alone! I should have to wait hours before you found a door to let me down--unless indeed you went and told Goody Wilson, and I had rather die where I am. No, no. Come along. I’ll show you how.’ With a rush and a scramble, she was up over the round back of the buttress before I had time to understand that she meant as usual to take the lead. If she could but have sent me back a portion of her skill, or lightness, or nerve, or whatever it was, just to set me off with a rush like that! But I stood preparing at once and hesitating. She turned and looked over the battlements of the tower. ‘Never mind, Wilfrid,’ she said; ‘I’ll fetch you presently.’ ‘No, no,’ I cried. ‘Wait for me. I’m coming.’ I got astride of the buttress, and painfully forced my way up. It was like a dream of leap-frog, prolonged under painfully recurring difficulties. I shut my eyes, and persuaded myself that all I had to do was to go on leap-frogging. At length, after more trepidation and brain-turning than I care to dwell upon, lest even now it should bring back a too keen realization of itself, I reached the battlement, seizing which with one shaking hand, and finding the other grasped by Clara, I tumbled on the leads of the tower. ‘Come along!’ she said. ‘You see, when the girls like, they can beat the boys--even at their own games. We’re all right now.’ ‘I did my best,’ I returned, mightily relieved. ‘_I’m_ not an angel, you know. I can’t fly like you.’ She seemed to appreciate the compliment. ‘Never mind. I’ve done it before. It was game of you to follow.’ Her praise elated me. And it was well. ‘Come along,’ she added.