like to know
why you couldn't take me there."

"For _reasons_," said the cuckoo drily. "I'll give you one if you like.
If I took you to this side of the moon you wouldn't be yourself when you
got there."

"Who would I be, then?"

"Griselda," said the cuckoo, "I told you once that there are a great
many things you don't know. Now, I'll tell you something more. There are
a great many things you're not _intended_ to know."

"Very well," said Griselda. "But do tell me when you're going on again,
and where you are going to take me to. There's no harm my asking that?"

"No," said the cuckoo. "I'm going on immediately, and I'm going to take
you where you wanted to go to, only you must shut your eyes again, and
lie perfectly still without talking, for I must put on steam--a good
deal of steam--and I can't talk to you. Are you all right?"

"All right," said Griselda.

She had hardly said the words when she seemed to fall asleep. The
rushing sound in the air all round her increased so greatly that she was
conscious of nothing else. For a moment or two she tried to remember
where she was, and where she was going, but it was useless. She forgot
everything, and knew nothing more of what was passing till--till she
heard the cuckoo again.

"Cuckoo, cuckoo; wake up, Griselda," he said.

Griselda sat up.

Where was she?

Not certainly where she had been when she went to sleep. Not on the
cuckoo's back, for there he was standing beside her, as tiny as usual.
Either he had grown little again, or she had grown big--which, she
supposed, it did not much matter. Only it was very queer!

"Where am I, cuckoo?" she said.

"Where you wished to be," he replied. "Look about you and see."

Griselda looked about her. What did she see? Something that I can only
give you a faint idea of, children; something so strange and unlike what
she had ever seen before, that only in a dream could you see it as
Griselda saw it. And yet _why_ it seemed to her so strange and unnatural
I cannot well explain; if I could, my words would be as good as
pictures, which I know they are not.

After all, it was only the sea she saw; but such a great, strange,
silent sea, for there were no waves. Griselda was seated on the shore,
close beside the water's edge, but it did not come lapping up to her
feet in the pretty, coaxing way that _our_ sea does when it is in a good
humour. There were here and there faint ripples on the surface, caused
by the slight bre