"Yes," said Griselda humbly, "they certainly do. But, cuckoo," she continued, "I never used to get into tempers at home--_hardly_ never, at least; and I liked my lessons then, and I never was scolded about them."
"What"s wrong here, then?" said the cuckoo. "It isn"t often that things go wrong in this house."
"That"s what Dorcas says," said Griselda. "It must be with my being a child--my aunts and the house and everything have got out of children"s ways."
"About time they did," remarked the cuckoo drily.
"And so," continued Griselda, "it is really very dull. I have lots of lessons, but it isn"t so much that I mind. It is that I"ve no one to play with."
"There"s something in that," said the cuckoo. He flapped his wings and was silent for a minute or two. "I"ll consider about it," he observed at last.
"Thank you," said Griselda, not exactly knowing what else to say.
"And in the meantime," continued the cuckoo, "you"d better obey present orders and go back to bed."
"Shall I say good-night to you, then?" asked Griselda somewhat timidly.
"You"re quite welcome to do so," replied the cuckoo. "Why shouldn"t you?"
"You see I wasn"t sure if you would like it," returned Griselda, "for of course you"re not like a person, and--and--I"ve been told all sorts of queer things about what fairies like and don"t like."
"Who said I was a fairy?" inquired the cuckoo.
"Dorcas did, and, _of course_, my own common sense did too," replied Griselda. "You must be a fairy--you couldn"t be anything else."
"I might be a fairyfied cuckoo," suggested the bird.
Griselda looked puzzled.
"I don"t understand," she said, "and I don"t think it could make much difference. But whatever you are, I wish you would tell me one thing."
"What?" said the cuckoo.
"I want to know, now that you"ve forgiven me for throwing the book at you, have you come back for good?"
"Certainly not for evil," replied the cuckoo.
Griselda gave a little wriggle. "Cuckoo, you"re laughing at me," she said. "I mean, have you come back to stay and cuckoo as usual and make my aunts happy again?"
"You"ll see in the morning," said the cuckoo. "Now go off to bed."
"Good night," said Griselda, "and thank you, and please don"t forget to let me know when you"ve considered."
"Cuckoo, cuckoo," was her little friend"s reply. Griselda thought it was meant for good night, but the fact of the matter was that at that exact second of time it was two o"clock in the morning.
She made her way back to bed. She had been standing some time talking to the cuckoo, but, though it was now well on in November, she did not feel the least cold, nor sleepy! She felt as happy and light-hearted as possible, and she wished it was morning, that she might get up. Yet the moment she laid her little brown curly head on the pillow, she fell asleep; and it seemed to her that just as she dropped off a soft feathery wing brushed her cheek gently and a tiny "Cuckoo" sounded in her ear.
When she woke it was bright morning, really bright morning, for the wintry sun was already sending some clear yellow rays out into the pale grey-blue sky.
"It must be late," thought Griselda, when she had opened the shutters and seen how light it was. "I must have slept a long time. I feel so beautifully unsleepy now. I must dress quickly--how nice it will be to see my aunts look happy again! I don"t even care if they scold me for being late."
But, after all, it was not so much later than usual; it was only a much brighter morning than they had had for some time. Griselda did dress herself very quickly, however. As she went downstairs two or three of the clocks in the house, for there were several, were striking eight.
These clocks must have been a little before the right time, for it was not till they had again relapsed into silence that there rang out from the ante-room the clear sweet tones, eight times repeated, of "Cuckoo."
Miss Grizzel and Miss Tabitha were already at the breakfast-table, but they received their little niece most graciously. Nothing was said about the clock, however, till about half-way through the meal, when Griselda, full of eagerness to know if her aunts were aware of the cuckoo"s return, could restrain herself no longer.
"Aunt Grizzel," she said, "isn"t the cuckoo all right again?"
"Yes, my dear. I am delighted to say it is," replied Miss Grizzel.
"Did you get it put right, Aunt Grizzel?" inquired Griselda, slyly.
"Little girls should not ask so many questions," replied Miss Grizzel, mysteriously. "It _is_ all right again, and that is enough. During fifty years that cuckoo has never, till yesterday, missed an hour. If you, in your sphere, my dear, do as well during fifty years, you won"t have done badly."
"No, indeed, you won"t have done badly," repeated Miss Tabitha.
But though the two old ladies thus tried to improve the occasion by a little lecturing, Griselda could see that at the bottom of their hearts they were both so happy that, even if she had been very naughty indeed, they could hardly have made up their minds to scold her.
She was not at all inclined to be naughty this day. She had something to think about and look forward to, which made her quite a different little girl, and made her take heart in doing her lessons as well as she possibly could.
"I wonder when the cuckoo will have considered enough about my having no one to play with?" she said to herself, as she was walking up and down the terrace at the back of the house.
"Caw, caw!" screamed a rook just over her head, as if in answer to her thought.
Griselda looked up at him.
"Your voice isn"t half so pretty as the cuckoo"s, Mr. Rook," she said.
"All the same, I dare say I should make friends with you, if I understood what you meant. How funny it would be to know all the languages of the birds and the beasts, like the prince in the fairy tale! I wonder if I should wish for that, if a fairy gave me a wish? No, I don"t think I would. I"d _far_ rather have the fairy carpet that would take you anywhere you liked in a minute. I"d go to China to see if all the people there look like Aunt Grizzel"s mandarins; and I"d first of all, of course, go to fairyland."
"You must come in now, little missie," said Dorcas"s voice. "Miss Grizzel says you have had play enough, and there"s a nice fire in the ante-room for you to do your lessons by."
"Play!" repeated Griselda indignantly, as she turned to follow the old servant. "Do you call walking up and down the terrace "play," Dorcas? I mustn"t loiter even to pick a flower, if there were any, for fear of catching cold, and I mustn"t run for fear of overheating myself. I declare, Dorcas, if I don"t have some play soon, or something to amuse me, I think I"ll run away."
"Nay, nay, missie, don"t talk like that. You"d never do anything so naughty, and you so like Miss Sybilla, who was so good."
"Dorcas, I"m tired of being told I"m like Miss Sybilla," said Griselda, impatiently. "She was my grandmother; no one would like to be told they were like their grandmother. It makes me feel as if my face must be all screwy up and wrinkly, and as if I should have spectacles on and a wig."
"_That_ is not like what Miss Sybilla was when I first saw her," said Dorcas. "She was younger than you, missie, and as pretty as a fairy."
"_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?"