“A little,” replied Griselda.

“Ah, well, I dare say you will manage.  I’ve ordered a court dress for you.  It will be all ready when we get there.”

“Thank you,” said Griselda.

In a minute or two the palanquin stopped.  The cuckoo got out, and Griselda followed him.

She found that they were at the entrance to a very much grander palace than the one in her aunt’s saloon.  The steps leading up to the door were very wide and shallow, and covered with a gold embroidered carpet, which looked as if it would be prickly to her bare feet, but which, on the contrary, when she trod upon it, felt softer than the softest moss.  She could see very little besides the carpet, for at each side of the steps stood rows and rows of mandarins, all something like, but a great deal grander than, the pair outside her aunt’s cabinet; and as the cuckoo hopped and Griselda walked up the staircase, they all, in turn, row by row, began solemnly to nod.  It gave them the look of a field of very high grass, through which, any one passing, leaves for the moment a trail, till all the heads bob up again into their places.

“What do they mean?” whispered Griselda.

“It’s a royal salute,” said the cuckoo.

“A salute!” said Griselda.  “I thought that meant kissing or guns.”

“Hush!” said the cuckoo, for by this time they had arrived at the top of the staircase; “you must be dressed now.”

Two mandariny-looking young ladies, with porcelain faces and three-cornered head-dresses, stepped forward and led Griselda into a small ante-room, where lay waiting for her the most magnificent dress you ever saw.  But how do you think they dressed her?  It was all by nodding.  They nodded to the blue and silver embroidered jacket, and in a moment it had fitted itself on to her.  They nodded to the splendid scarlet satin skirt, made very short in front and very long behind, and before Griselda knew where she was, it was adjusted quite correctly.  They nodded to the head-dress, and the sashes, and the necklaces and bracelets, and forthwith they all arranged themselves.  Last of all, they nodded to the dearest, sweetest little pair of high-heeled shoes imaginable—­all silver, and blue, and gold, and scarlet, and everything mixed up together, only they were rather a stumpy shape about the toes, and Griselda’s bare feet were encased in them, and, to her surprise, quite comfortably so.

“They don’t hurt me a bit,” she said aloud; “yet they didn’t look the least the shape of my foot.”

But her attendants only nodded; and turning round, she saw the cuckoo waiting for her.  He did not speak either, rather to her annoyance, but gravely led the way through one grand room after another to the grandest of all, where the entertainment was evidently just about to begin.  And everywhere there were mandarins, rows and rows, who all set to work nodding as fast as Griselda appeared.  She began to be rather tired of royal salutes, and was glad when, at last, in profound silence, the procession, consisting of the cuckoo and herself, and about half a dozen “mandarins,” came to a halt before a kind of dais, or raised seat, at the end of the hall.