Griselda’s conscience gave her a sharp prick.  Could it be her doing that trouble was coming upon the old house?  What a punishment for a moment’s fit of ill-temper.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk that way, Dorcas,” she said; “it makes me so unhappy.”

“What a feeling heart the child has!” said the old servant as she went on her way downstairs.  “It’s true—­she is very like Miss Sybilla.”

That day was a very weary and sad one for Griselda.  She was oppressed by a feeling she did not understand.  She knew she had done wrong, but she had sorely repented it, and “I do think the cuckoo might have come back again,” she said to herself, “if he is a fairy; and if he isn’t, it can’t be true what Dorcas says.”

Her aunts made no allusion to the subject in her presence, and almost seemed to have forgotten that she had known of their distress.  They were more grave and silent than usual, but otherwise things went on in their ordinary way.  Griselda spent the morning “at her tasks,” in the ante-room, but was thankful to get away from the tick-tick of the clock in the corner and out into the garden.

But there, alas! it was just as bad.  The rooks seemed to know that something was the matter; they set to work making such a chatter immediately Griselda appeared that she felt inclined to run back into the house again.

“I am sure they are talking about me,” she said to herself.  “Perhaps they are fairies too.  I am beginning to think I don’t like fairies.”

She was glad when bed-time came.  It was a sort of reproach to her to see her aunts so pale and troubled; and though she tried to persuade herself that she thought them very silly, she could not throw off the uncomfortable feeling.

She was so tired when she went to bed—­tired in the disagreeable way that comes from a listless, uneasy day—­that she fell asleep at once and slept heavily.  When she woke, which she did suddenly, and with a start, it was still perfectly dark, like the first morning that she had wakened in the old house.  It seemed to her that she had not wakened of herself—­something had roused her.  Yes! there it was again, a very, very soft distant “cuckoo.” Was it distant?  She could not tell.  Almost she could have fancied it was close to her.

“If it’s that cuckoo come back again, I’ll catch him!” exclaimed Griselda.

She darted out of bed, felt her way to the door, which was closed, and opening it let in a rush of moonlight from the unshuttered passage window.  In another moment her little bare feet were pattering along the passage at full speed, in the direction of the great saloon.

For Griselda’s childhood among the troop of noisy brothers had taught her one lesson—­she was afraid of nothing.  Or rather perhaps I should say she had never learnt that there was anything to be afraid of!  And is there?

CHAPTER III.