the cuckoo
anything. She saw and heard nothing of him--nothing, that is to say, but
his regular appearance to tell the hours as usual.

"I suppose," thought Griselda, "he thinks the mandarins' ball was fun
enough to last me a good while. It really was very good-natured of him
to take me to it, so I mustn't grumble."

A few days after this poor Griselda caught cold. It was not a very bad
cold, I must confess, but her aunts made rather a fuss about it. They
wanted her to stay in bed, but to this Griselda so much objected that
they did not insist upon it.

"It would be so dull," she said piteously. "Please let me stay in the
ante-room, for all my things are there; and, then, there's the cuckoo."

Aunt Grizzel smiled at this, and Griselda got her way. But even in the
ante-room it was rather dull. Miss Grizzel and Miss Tabitha were obliged
to go out, to drive all the way to Merrybrow Hall, as Lady Lavander sent
a messenger to say that she had an attack of influenza, and wished to
see her friends at once.

Miss Tabitha began to cry--she was so tender-hearted.

"Troubles never come singly," said Miss Grizzel, by way of consolation.

"No, indeed, they never come singly," said Miss Tabitha, shaking her
head and wiping her eyes.

So off they set; and Griselda, in her arm-chair by the ante-room fire,
with some queer little old-fashioned books of her aunts', which she had
already read more than a dozen times, beside her by way of amusement,
felt that there was one comfort in her troubles--she had escaped the
long weary drive to her godmother's.

But it was very dull. It got duller and duller. Griselda curled herself
up in her chair, and wished she could go to sleep, though feeling quite
sure she couldn't, for she had stayed in bed much later than usual this
morning, and had been obliged to spend the time in sleeping, for want of
anything better to do.

She looked up at the clock.

"I don't know even what to wish for," she said to herself. "I don't feel
the least inclined to play at anything, and I shouldn't care to go to
the mandarins again. Oh, cuckoo, cuckoo, I am so dull; couldn't you
think of anything to amuse me?"

It was not near "any o'clock." But after waiting a minute or two, it
seemed to Griselda that she heard the soft sound of "coming" that always
preceded the cuckoo's appearance. She was right. In another moment she
heard his usual greeting, "Cuckoo, cuckoo!"

"Oh, cuckoo!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad