She was up in a minute, feeling her way across the room to the window, and without much difficulty she found the hook of the shutters, unfastened it, and threw one side open.  Ah no, there was no sign of morning to be seen.  There was moonlight, but nothing else, and not so very much of that, for the clouds were hurrying across the “orbed maiden’s” face at such a rate, one after the other, that the light was more like a number of pale flashes than the steady, cold shining of most frosty moonlight nights.  There was going to be a change of weather, and the cloud armies were collecting together from all quarters; that was the real explanation of the hurrying and skurrying Griselda saw overhead, but this, of course, she did not understand.  She only saw that it looked wild and stormy, and she shivered a little, partly with cold, partly with a half-frightened feeling that she could not have explained.

“I had better go back to bed,” she said to herself; “but I am not a bit sleepy.”

She was just drawing-to the shutter again, when something caught her eye, and she stopped short in surprise.  A little bird was outside on the windowsill—­a tiny bird crouching in close to the cold glass.  Griselda’s kind heart was touched in an instant.  Cold as she was, she pushed back the shutter again, and drawing a chair forward to the window, managed to unfasten it—­it was not a very heavy one—­and to open it wide enough to slip her hand gently along to the bird.  It did not start or move.

“Can it be dead?” thought Griselda anxiously.

But no, it was not dead.  It let her put her hand round it and draw it in, and to her delight she felt that it was soft and warm, and it even gave a gentle peck on her thumb.

“Poor little bird, how cold you must be,” she said kindly.  But, to her amazement, no sooner was the bird safely inside the room, than it managed cleverly to escape from her hand.  It fluttered quietly up on to her shoulder, and sang out in a soft but cheery tone, “Cuckoo, cuckoo—­cold, did you say, Griselda?  Not so very, thank you.”

Griselda stept back from the window.

“It’s you, is it?” she said rather surlily, her tone seeming to infer that she had taken a great deal of trouble for nothing.

“Of course it is, and why shouldn’t it be?  You’re not generally so sorry to see me.  What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter,” replied Griselda, feeling a little ashamed of her want of civility; “only, you see, if I had known it was you——­” She hesitated.

“You wouldn’t have clambered up and hurt your poor fingers in opening the window if you had known it was me—­is that it, eh?” said the cuckoo.

Somehow, when the cuckoo said “eh?” like that, Griselda was obliged to tell just what she was thinking.

“No, I wouldn’t have needed to open the window,” she said. “You can get in or out whenever you like; you’re not like a real bird.  Of course, you were just tricking me, sitting out there and pretending to be a starved robin.”