When she woke she was in the arm-chair by the ante-room fire, everything around her looking just as usual, the cuckoo clock ticking away calmly and regularly. Had it been a dream only? Griselda could not make up her mind.
"But I don"t see that it matters if it was," she said to herself. "If it was a dream, the cuckoo sent it to me all the same, and I thank you very much indeed, cuckoo," she went on, looking up at the clock. "The last picture was rather sad, but still it was very nice to see it, and I thank you very much, and I"ll never say again that I don"t like to be told I"m like my dear pretty grandmother."
The cuckoo took no notice of what she said, but Griselda did not mind.
She was getting used to his "ways."
"I expect he hears me quite well," she thought; "and even if he doesn"t, it"s only civil to _try_ to thank him."
She sat still contentedly enough, thinking over what she had seen, and trying to make more "pictures" for herself in the fire. Then there came faintly to her ears the sound of carriage wheels, opening and shutting of doors, a little bustle of arrival.
"My aunts must have come back," thought Griselda; and so it was. In a few minutes Miss Grizzel, closely followed by Miss Tabitha, appeared at the ante-room door.
"Well, my love," said Miss Grizzel anxiously, "and how are you? Has the time seemed very long while we were away?"
"Oh no, thank you, Aunt Grizzel," replied Griselda, "not at all. I"ve been quite happy, and my cold"s ever so much better, and my headache"s _quite_ gone."
"Come, that is good news," said Miss Grizzel. "Not that I"m exactly _surprised_," she continued, turning to Miss Tabitha, "for there really is nothing like tansy tea for a feverish cold."
"Nothing," agreed Miss Tabitha; "there really is nothing like it."
"Aunt Grizzel," said Griselda, after a few moments" silence, "was my grandmother quite young when she died?"
"Yes, my love, very young," replied Miss Grizzel with a change in her voice.
"And was her husband _very_ sorry?" pursued Griselda.
"Heart-broken," said Miss Grizzel. "He did not live long after, and then you know, my dear, your father was sent to us to take care of. And now he has sent _you_--the third generation of young creatures confided to our care."
"Yes," said Griselda. "My grandmother 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."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
VI
RUBBED THE WRONG WAY
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"For now and then there comes a day When everything goes wrong."
Griselda"s cold _was_ much better by "to-morrow morning." In fact, I might almost say it was quite well.
But Griselda herself did not feel quite well, and saying this reminds me that it is hardly sense to speak of a _cold_ being better or well--for a cold"s being "well" means that it is not there at all, out of existence, in short, and if a thing is out of existence how can we say anything about it? Children, I feel quite in a hobble--I cannot get my mind straight about it--please think it over and give me your opinion. In the meantime, I will go on about Griselda.
She felt just a little ill--a sort of feeling that sometimes is rather nice, sometimes "very extremely" much the reverse! She felt in the humour for being petted, and having beef-tea, and jelly, and sponge cake with her tea, and for a day or two this was all very well. She _was_ petted, and she had lots of beef-tea, and jelly, and grapes, and sponge cakes, and everything nice, for her aunts, as you must have seen by this time, were really very, very kind to her in every way in which they understood how to be so.
But after a few days of the continued petting, and the beef-tea and the jelly and all the rest of it, it occurred to Miss Grizzel, who had a good large b.u.mp of "common sense," that it might be possible to overdo this sort of thing.
"Tabitha," she said to her sister, when they were sitting together in the evening after Griselda had gone to bed, "Tabitha, my dear, I think the child is quite well again now. It seems to me it would be well to send a note to good Mr. Kneebreeches, to say that she will be able to resume her studies the day after to-morrow."
"The day after to-morrow," repeated Miss Tabitha. "The day after to-morrow--to say that she will be able to resume her studies the day after to-morrow--oh yes, certainly. It would be very well to send a note to good Mr. Kneebreeches, my dear Grizzel."
"I thought you would agree with me," said Miss Grizzel, with a sigh of relief (as if poor Miss Tabitha during all the last half-century had ever ventured to do anything else), getting up to fetch her writing materials as she spoke. "It is such a satisfaction to consult together about what we do. I was only a little afraid of being hard upon the child, but as you agree with me, I have no longer any misgiving."
"Any misgiving, oh dear, no!" said Miss Tabitha. "You have no reason for any misgiving, I am sure, my dear Grizzel."
So the note was written and despatched, and the next morning when, about twelve o"clock, Griselda made her appearance in the little drawing-room where her aunts usually sat, looking, it must be confessed, very plump and rosy for an invalid, Miss Grizzel broached the subject.
"I have written to request Mr. Kneebreeches to resume his instructions to-morrow," she said quietly. "I think you are quite well again now, so Dorcas must wake you at your usual hour."
Griselda had been settling herself comfortably on a corner of the sofa.
She had got a nice book to read, which her father, hearing of her illness, had sent her by post, and she was looking forward to the tempting plateful of jelly which Dorcas had brought her for luncheon every day since she had been ill. Altogether, she was feeling very "lazy-easy" and contented. Her aunt"s announcement felt like a sudden downpour of cold water, or rush of east wind. She sat straight up in her sofa, and exclaimed in a tone of great annoyance--
"_Oh_, Aunt Grizzel!"
"Well, my dear?" said Miss Grizzel, placidly.