the tables; wax lights were
sending out their brightness in every direction, and the room was filled
with ladies and gentlemen in gay attire.

Among them, after a time, Griselda remarked two ladies, no longer very
young, but still handsome and stately, and something whispered to her
that they were her two aunts, Miss Grizzel and Miss Tabitha.

"Poor aunts!" she said softly to herself; "how old they have grown since
then."

But she did not long look at them; her attention was attracted by a much
younger lady--a mere girl she seemed, but oh, so sweet and pretty! She
was dancing with a gentleman whose eyes looked as if they saw no one
else, and she herself seemed brimming over with youth and happiness. Her
very steps had joy in them.

"Well, Griselda," whispered a voice, which she knew was the cuckoo's;
"so you don't like to be told you are like your grandmother, eh?"

Griselda turned round sharply to look for the speaker, but he was not to
be seen. And when she turned again, the picture of the great saloon had
faded away.

* * * * *

One more picture.

Griselda looked again. She saw before her a country road in full summer
time; the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the trees covered
with their bright green leaves--everything appeared happy and joyful.
But at last in the distance she saw, slowly approaching, a group of a
few people, all walking together, carrying in their centre something
long and narrow, which, though the black cloth covering it was almost
hidden by the white flowers with which it was thickly strewn, Griselda
knew to be a coffin.

It was a funeral procession, and in the place of chief mourner, with
pale, set face, walked the same young man whom Griselda had last seen
dancing with the girl Sybilla in the great saloon.

The sad group passed slowly out of sight; but as it disappeared there
fell upon the ear the sounds of sweet music, lovelier far than she had
heard before--lovelier than the magic cuckoo's most lovely songs--and
somehow, in the music, it seemed to the child's fancy there were mingled
the soft strains of a woman's voice.

"It is Sybilla singing," thought Griselda dreamily, and with that she
fell asleep again.

* * * * *

When she woke she was in the arm-chair by the ante-room fire,
everything around her looking just as usual, the cuckoo clock ticking
away calmly and regularly. Had it been a dream only? Grise