“It came so suddenly,” she said to herself; “some one must have lighted a lamp in there all at once.  But it can’t be a lamp, it’s too bright for a lamp.  It’s more like the sun; but how ever could the sun be shining in a room in the middle of the night?  What shall I do?  Shall I open the door and peep in?”

“Cuckoo, cuckoo,” came the answer, soft but clear, from the other side.

“Can it be a trick of the cuckoo’s to get me out into the garden?” thought Griselda; and for the first time since she had run out of her room a shiver of cold made her teeth chatter and her skin feel creepy.

“Cuckoo, cuckoo,” sounded again, nearer this time, it seemed to Griselda.

“He’s waiting for me.  I will trust him,” she said resolutely.  “He has always been good and kind, and it’s horrid of me to think he’s going to trick me.”

She ran down the little stair, she seized the handle of the door.  It turned easily; the door opened—­opened, and closed again noiselessly behind her, and what do you think she saw?

“Shut your eyes for a minute, Griselda,” said the cuckoo’s voice beside her; “the light will dazzle you at first.  Shut them, and I will brush them with a little daisy dew, to strengthen them.”

Griselda did as she was told.  She felt the tip of the cuckoo’s softest feather pass gently two or three times over her eyelids, and a delicious scent seemed immediately to float before her.

“I didn’t know daisies had any scent,” she remarked.

“Perhaps you didn’t.  You forget, Griselda, that you have a great——­”

“Oh, please don’t, cuckoo.  Please, please don’t, dear cuckoo,” she exclaimed, dancing about with her hands clasped in entreaty, but her eyes still firmly closed.  “Don’t say that, and I’ll promise to believe whatever you tell me.  And how soon may I open my eyes, please, cuckoo?”

“Turn round slowly, three times.  That will give the dew time to take effect,” said the cuckoo.  “Here goes—­one—­two—­three.  There, now.”

Griselda opened her eyes.

CHAPTER VII.

BUTTERFLY-LAND.

    “I’d be a butterfly.”

Griselda opened her eyes.

What did she see?

The loveliest, loveliest garden that ever or never a little girl’s eyes saw.  As for describing it, I cannot.  I must leave a good deal to your fancy.  It was just a delicious garden.  There was a charming mixture of all that is needed to make a garden perfect—­grass, velvety lawn rather; water, for a little brook ran tinkling in and out, playing bo-peep among the bushes; trees, of course, and flowers, of course, flowers of every shade and shape.  But all these beautiful things Griselda did not at first give as much attention to as they deserved; her eyes were so occupied with a quite unusual sight that met them.

This was butterflies!  Not that butterflies are so very uncommon; but butterflies, as Griselda saw them, I am quite sure, children, none of you ever saw, or are likely to see.  There were such enormous numbers of them, and the variety of their colours and sizes was so great.  They were fluttering about everywhere; the garden seemed actually alive with them.