my ladies, you see, missie. Her mother had come
from Germany, and it was in some strange place there, where her
grandfather lived, that the cuckoo clock was made. They make wonderful
clocks there, I've been told, but none more wonderful than our cuckoo,
I'm sure."

"No, I'm _sure_ not," said Griselda, softly. "Why didn't Miss Sybilla
take it with her when she was married and went away?"

"She knew her sisters were so fond of it. It was like a memory of her
left behind for them. It was like a part of her. And do you know,
missie, the night she died--she died soon after your father was born, a
year after she was married--for a whole hour, from twelve to one, that
cuckoo went on cuckooing in a soft, sad way, like some living creature
in trouble. Of course, we did not know anything was wrong with her, and
folks said something had caught some of the springs of the works; but
_I_ didn't think so, and never shall. And----"

But here Dorcas's reminiscences were abruptly brought to a close by Miss
Grizzel's appearance at the other end of the terrace.

"Griselda, what are you loitering so for? Dorcas, you should have
hastened, not delayed Miss Griselda."

So Griselda was hurried off to her lessons, and Dorcas to her kitchen.
But Griselda did not much mind. She had plenty to think of and wonder
about, and she liked to do her lessons in the ante-room, with the
tick-tick of the clock in her ears, and the feeling that _perhaps_ the
cuckoo was watching her through some invisible peep-hole in his closed
doors.

"And if he sees," thought Griselda, "if he sees how hard I am trying to
do my lessons well, it will perhaps make him be quick about
'considering.'"

So she did try very hard. And she didn't speak to the cuckoo when he
came out to say it was four o'clock. She was busy, and he was busy. She
felt it was better to wait till he gave her some sign of being ready to
talk to her again.

For fairies, you know, children, however charming, are sometimes
_rather_ queer to have to do with. They don't like to be interfered
with, or treated except with very great respect, and they have their own
ideas about what is proper and what isn't, I can assure you.

I suppose it was with working so hard at her lessons--most people say
it was with having been up the night before, running about the house in
the moonlight; but as she had never felt so "fresh" in her life as when
she got up that morning, it could hardly have been that--that Grise