you have come at last. I _am_
so dull, and it has nothing to do with lessons this time. It's that I've
got such a bad cold, and my head's aching, and I'm so tired of reading,
all by myself."

"What would you like to do?" said the cuckoo. "You don't want to go to
see the mandarins again?"

"Oh no; I couldn't dance."

"Or the mermaids down under the sea?"

"Oh, dear, no," said Griselda, with a little shiver, "it would be far
too cold. I would just like to stay where I am, if some one would tell
me stories. I'm not even sure that I could listen to stories. What could
you do to amuse me, cuckoo?"

"Would you like to see some pictures?" said the cuckoo. "I could show
you pictures without your taking any trouble."

"Oh yes, that would be beautiful," cried Griselda. "What pictures will
you show me? Oh, I know. I would like to see the place where you were
born--where that very, very clever man made you and the clock, I mean."

"Your great-great-grandfather," said the cuckoo. "Very well. Now,
Griselda, shut your eyes. First of all, I am going to sing."

Griselda shut her eyes, and the cuckoo began his song. It was something
like what he had sung at the mandarins' palace, only even more
beautiful. It was so soft and dreamy, Griselda felt as if she could have
sat there for ever, listening to it.

The first notes were low and murmuring. Again they made Griselda think
of little rippling brooks in summer, and now and then there came a sort
of hum as of insects buzzing in the warm sunshine near. This humming
gradually increased, till at last Griselda was conscious of nothing
more--_everything_ seemed to be humming, herself too, till at last she
fell asleep.

When she opened her eyes, the ante-room and everything in it, except the
arm-chair on which she was still curled up, had disappeared--melted away
into a misty cloud all round her, which in turn gradually faded, till
before her she saw a scene quite new and strange. It was the first of
the cuckoo's "pictures."

An old, quaint room, with a high, carved mantelpiece, and a bright fire
sparkling in the grate. It was not a pretty room--it had more the look
of a workshop of some kind; but it was curious and interesting. All
round, the walls were hung with clocks and strange mechanical toys.
There was a fiddler slowly fiddling, a gentleman and lady gravely
dancing a minuet, a little man drawing up water in a bucket out of a
glass vase in which gold fish were swimming about--