“Was she?” exclaimed Griselda, stopping short.

“Yes, indeed she was.  She might have been a fairy, so sweet she was and gentle—­and yet so merry.  Every creature loved her; even the animals about seemed to know her, as if she was one of themselves.  She brought good luck to the house, and it was a sad day when she left it.”

“I thought you said it was the cuckoo that brought good luck?” said Griselda.

“Well, so it was.  The cuckoo and Miss Sybilla came here the same day.  It was left to her by her mother’s father, with whom she had lived since she was a baby, and when he died she came here to her sisters.  She wasn’t own sister to 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.