ay the journey to her
mouth of a spoonful of bread and milk, "have you got a cuckoo in a
cage?"

"A cuckoo in a cage," repeated her elder aunt, Miss Grizzel; "what is
the child talking about?"

"In a cage!" echoed Miss Tabitha, "a cuckoo in a cage!"

"There is a cuckoo somewhere in the house," said Griselda; "I heard it
in the night. It couldn't have been out-of-doors, could it? It would be
too cold."

The aunts looked at each other with a little smile. "So like her
grandmother," they whispered. Then said Miss Grizzel--

"We have a cuckoo, my dear, though it isn't in a cage, and it isn't
exactly the sort of cuckoo you are thinking of. It lives in a clock."

"In a clock," repeated Miss Tabitha, as if to confirm her sister's
statement.

"In a clock!" exclaimed Griselda, opening her grey eyes very wide.

It sounded something like the three bears, all speaking one after the
other, only Griselda's voice was not like Tiny's; it was the loudest of
the three.

"In a clock!" she exclaimed; "but it can't be alive, then?"

"Why not?" said Miss Grizzel.

"I don't know," replied Griselda, looking puzzled.

"I knew a little girl once," pursued Miss Grizzel, "who was quite of
opinion the cuckoo _was_ alive, and nothing would have persuaded her it
was not. Finish your breakfast, my dear, and then if you like you shall
come with me and see the cuckoo for yourself."

"Thank you, Aunt Grizzel," said Griselda, going on with her bread and
milk.

"Yes," said Miss Tabitha, "you shall see the cuckoo for yourself."

"Thank you, Aunt Tabitha," said Griselda. It was rather a bother to have
always to say "thank you," or "no, thank you," twice, but Griselda
thought it was polite to do so, as Aunt Tabitha always repeated
everything that Aunt Grizzel said. It wouldn't have mattered so much if
Aunt Tabitha had said it _at once_ after Miss Grizzel, but as she
generally made a little pause between, it was sometimes rather awkward.
But of course it was better to say "thank you" or "no, thank you" twice
over than to hurt Aunt Tabitha's feelings.

After breakfast Aunt Grizzel was as good as her word. She took Griselda
through several of the rooms in the house, pointing out all the
curiosities, and telling all the histories of the rooms and their
contents; and Griselda liked to listen, only in every room they came
to, she wondered _when_ they would get to the room where lived the
cuckoo.

Aunt Tabitha did not come with them, for she w