ther died in the summer, when all the
flowers were out; and she was buried in a pretty country place, wasn't
she?"

"Yes," said Miss Grizzel, looking rather bewildered.

"And when she was a little girl she lived with her grandfather, the old
Dutch mechanic," continued Griselda, unconsciously using the very words
she had heard in her vision. "He was a nice old man; and how clever of
him to have made the cuckoo clock, and such lots of other pretty,
wonderful things. I don't wonder little Sybilla loved him; he was so
good to her. But, oh, Aunt Grizzel, _how_ pretty she was when she was a
young lady! That time that she danced with my grandfather in the great
saloon. And how very nice you and Aunt Tabitha looked then, too."

Miss Grizzel held her very breath in astonishment; and no doubt if Miss
Tabitha had known she was doing so, she would have held hers too. But
Griselda lay still, gazing at the fire, quite unconscious of her aunt's
surprise.

"Your papa told you all these old stories, I suppose, my dear," said
Miss Grizzel at last.

"Oh no," said Griselda dreamily. "Papa never told me anything like that.
Dorcas told me a very little, I think; at least, she made me want to
know, and I asked the cuckoo, and then, you see, he showed me it all. It
was so pretty."

Miss Grizzel glanced at her sister.

"Tabitha, my dear," she said in a low voice, "do you hear?"

And Miss Tabitha, who really was not very deaf when she set herself to
hear, nodded in awe-struck silence.

"Tabitha," continued Miss Grizzel in the same tone, "it is wonderful!
Ah, yes, how true it is, Tabitha, that 'there are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy'" (for Miss Grizzel was a
well-read old lady, you see); "and from the very first, Tabitha, we
always had a feeling that the child was strangely like Sybilla."

"Strangely like Sybilla," echoed Miss Tabitha.

"May she grow up as good, if not quite as beautiful--_that_ we could
scarcely expect; and may she be longer spared to those that love her,"
added Miss Grizzel, bending over Griselda, while two or three tears
slowly trickled down her aged cheeks. "See, Tabitha, the dear child is
fast asleep. How sweet she looks! I trust by to-morrow morning she will
be quite herself again; her cold is so much better."

[Illustration]

VI

RUBBED THE WRONG WAY

[Illustration]

"For now and then there comes a day
When everything goes wrong."

Griselda's c