aid; and
though the language in which he spoke was quite strange to Griselda, she
understood his meaning perfectly well.

"Yes, dear grandfather; and isn't my dress lovely?" said the child. "I
should be _so_ happy if only you were coming too, and would get
yourself a beautiful velvet coat like Mynheer van Huyten."

The old man shook his head.

"I have no time for such things, my darling," he replied; "and besides,
I am too old. I must work--work hard to make money for my pet when I am
gone, that she may not be dependent on the bounty of those English
sisters."

"But I won't care for money when you are gone, grandfather," said the
child, her eyes filling with tears. "I would rather just go on living in
this little house, and I am sure the neighbours would give me something
to eat, and then I could hear all your clocks ticking, and think of you.
I don't want you to sell all your wonderful things for money for me,
grandfather. They would remind me of you, and money wouldn't."

"Not all, Sybilla, not all," said the old man. "The best of all, the
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of my life, shall not be sold. It shall be yours,
and you will have in your possession a clock that crowned heads might
seek in vain to purchase."

His dim old eyes brightened, and for a moment he sat erect and strong.

"Do you mean the cuckoo clock?" said Sybilla, in a low voice.

"Yes, my darling, the cuckoo clock, the crowning work of my life--a
clock that shall last long after I, and perhaps thou, my pretty child,
are crumbling into dust; a clock that shall last to tell my
great-grandchildren to many generations that the old Dutch mechanic was
not altogether to be despised."

Sybilla sprang into his arms.

"You are not to talk like that, little grandfather," she said. "I shall
teach my children and my grandchildren to be so proud of you--oh, so
proud!--as proud as I am of you, little grandfather."

"Gently, my darling," said the old man, as he placed carefully on the
table the delicate piece of mechanism he held in his hand, and tenderly
embraced the child. "Kiss me once again, my pet, and then thou must go;
thy little friends will be waiting."

* * * * *

As he said these words the mist slowly gathered again before Griselda's
eyes--the first of the cuckoo's pictures faded from her sight.

* * * * *

When she looked again the scene was changed, but this time it was not a
strange one,