the pal--?"
she began to say; but she never finished the sentence, for just as she
had got her shoe off she felt the cuckoo throw something round her. It
was the feather mantle.

And Griselda knew nothing more till she opened her eyes the next
morning, and saw the first early rays of sunshine peeping in through the
chinks of the closed shutters of her little bedroom.

She rubbed her eyes, and sat up in bed. Could it have been a dream?

"What could have made me fall asleep so all of a sudden?" she thought.
"I wasn't the least sleepy at the mandarins' ball. What fun it was! I
believe that cuckoo made me fall asleep on purpose to make me fancy it
was a dream. _Was_ it a dream?"

She began to feel confused and doubtful, when suddenly she felt
something hurting her arm, like a little lump in the bed. She felt with
her hand to see if she could smooth it away, and drew out--one of the
shoes belonging to her court dress! The very one she had held in her
hand at the moment the cuckoo spirited her home again to bed.

"Ah, Mr. Cuckoo!" she exclaimed, "you meant to play me a trick, but you
haven't succeeded, you see."

She jumped out of bed and unfastened one of the window-shutters, then
jumped in again to admire the little shoe in comfort. It was even
prettier than she had thought it at the ball. She held it up and looked
at it. It was about the size of the first joint of her little finger.
"To think that I should have been dancing with you on last night!" she
said to the shoe. "And yet the cuckoo says being big or little is all a
matter of fancy. I wonder what he'll think of to amuse me next?"

She was still holding up the shoe and admiring it when Dorcas came with
the hot water.

"Look, Dorcas," she said.

"Bless me, it's one of the shoes off the Chinese dolls in the saloon,"
exclaimed the old servant. "How ever did you get that, missie? Your
aunts wouldn't be pleased."

"It just isn't one of the Chinese dolls' shoes, and if you don't believe
me, you can go and look for yourself," said Griselda. "It's my very own
shoe, and it was given me to my own self."

Dorcas looked at her curiously, but said no more, only as she was going
out of the room Griselda heard her saying something about "so very like
Miss Sybilla."

"I wonder what 'Miss Sybilla' _was_ like?" thought Griselda. "I have a
good mind to ask the cuckoo. He seems to have known her very well."

It was not for some days that Griselda had a chance of asking