CHAPTER IV

OUT ON THE HILLS


Milly and Olly, and the four little Westmoreland children, had a very
pleasant tea together in the afternoon of the Nortons's first day at
Ravensnest. Bessie and Charlie certainly didn't talk much; but Tiza,
when once her mother had made her come, thought proper to get rid of a
great deal of her shyness, and to chatter and romp so much that they
quite fell in love with her, and could not be persuaded to go anywhere
or do anything without her. Nurse would not let Milly and Olly go to
call the cows, though she promised they should some other day; but she
took the whole party down to the stepping-stones after tea, and great
fun it was to see Becky and Tiza running over the stepping-stones, and
jumping from one stone to another like little fawns. Milly and Olly
wanted sorely to go too, but there was no persuading Nana to let them go
without their father to fish them out if they tumbled in, so they had to
content themselves with dangling their legs over the first
stepping-stone and watching the others. But perhaps you don't quite
known what stepping-stones are? They are large high stones, with flat
tops, which people put in, a little way apart from each other, right
across a river, so that by stepping from one to the other you can cross
to the opposite side. Of course they only do for little rivers, where
the water isn't very deep. And they don't always do even there.
Sometimes in the river Thora, where Milly and Olly's stepping-stones
were, when it rained very much, the water rose so high that it dashed