“Griselda, it’s time to go.”

“Oh dear, why?” she asked.  “I’m not a bit tired.  Why need we go yet?”

“Obeying orders,” said the cuckoo; and after that, Griselda dared not say another word.  It was very nearly as bad as being told she had a great deal to learn.

“Must I say good-bye to the king and all the people?” she inquired; but before the cuckoo had time to answer, she gave a little squeal.  “Oh, cuckoo,” she cried, “you’ve trod on my foot.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the cuckoo.

“I must take off my shoe; it does so hurt,” she went on.

“Take it off, then,” said the cuckoo.

Griselda stooped to take off her shoe.  “Are we going home in the pal—?” she began to say; but she never finished the sentence, for just as she had got her shoe off she felt the cuckoo throw something round her.  It was the feather mantle.

And Griselda knew nothing more till she opened her eyes the next morning, and saw the first early rays of sunshine peeping in through the chinks of the closed shutters of her little bedroom.

She rubbed her eyes, and sat up in bed.  Could it have been a dream?

“What could have made me fall asleep so all of a sudden?” she thought.  “I wasn’t the least sleepy at the mandarins’ ball.  What fun it was!  I believe that cuckoo made me fall asleep on purpose to make me fancy it was a dream. Was it a dream?”

She began to feel confused and doubtful, when suddenly she felt something hurting her arm, like a little lump in the bed.  She felt with her hand to see if she could smooth it away, and drew out—­one of the shoes belonging to her court dress!  The very one she had held in her hand at the moment the cuckoo spirited her home again to bed.

“Ah, Mr. Cuckoo!” she exclaimed, “you meant to play me a trick, but you haven’t succeeded, you see.”

She jumped out of bed and unfastened one of the window-shutters, then jumped in again to admire the little shoe in comfort.  It was even prettier than she had thought it at the ball.  She held it up and looked at it.  It was about the size of the first joint of her little finger.  “To think that I should have been dancing with you on last night!” she said to the shoe.  “And yet the cuckoo says being big or little is all a matter of fancy.  I wonder what he’ll think of to amuse me next?”

She was still holding up the shoe and admiring it when Dorcas came with the hot water.

“Look, Dorcas,” she said.

“Bless me, it’s one of the shoes off the Chinese dolls in the saloon,” exclaimed the old servant.  “How ever did you get that, missie?  Your aunts wouldn’t be pleased.”

“It just isn’t one of the Chinese dolls’ shoes, and if you don’t believe me, you can go and look for yourself,” said Griselda.  “It’s my very own shoe, and it was given me to my own self.”

Dorcas looked at her curiously, but said no more, only as she was going out of the room Griselda heard her saying something about “so very like Miss Sybilla.”