“I know it now,” said Griselda.  “I will never talk about idle butterflies again—­never.  But, cuckoo, do they paint all the flowers here, too?  What a fearful lot they must have to do!”

“No,” said the cuckoo; “the flowers down here are fairy flowers.  They never fade or die, they are always just as you see them.  But the colours of your flowers are all taken from them, as you have seen.  Of course they don’t look the same up there,” he went on, with a slight contemptuous shrug of his cuckoo shoulders; “the coarse air and the ugly things about must take the bloom off.  The wild flowers do the best, to my thinking; people don’t meddle with them in their stupid, clumsy way.”

“But how do they get the flowers sent up to the world, cuckoo?” asked Griselda.

“They’re packed up, of course, and taken up at night when all of you are asleep,” said the cuckoo.  “They’re painted on elastic stuff, you see, which fits itself as the plant grows.  Why, if your eyes were as they are usually, Griselda, you couldn’t even see the petals the butterflies are painting now.”

“And the packing up,” said Griselda; “do the butterflies do that too?”

“No,” said the cuckoo, “the fairies look after that.”

“How wonderful!” exclaimed Griselda.  But before the cuckoo had time to say more a sudden tumult filled the air.  It was butterfly dinner-time!

“Are you hungry, Griselda?” said the cuckoo.

“Not so very,” replied Griselda.

“It’s just as well perhaps that you’re not,” he remarked, “for I don’t know that you’d be much the better for dinner here.”

“Why not?” inquired Griselda curiously.  “What do they have for dinner?  Honey?  I like that very well, spread on the top of bread-and-butter, of course—­I don’t think I should care to eat it alone.”

“You won’t get any honey,” the cuckoo was beginning; but he was interrupted.  Two handsome butterflies flew into the great glass hall, and making straight for the cuckoo, alighted on his shoulders.  They fluttered about him for a minute or two, evidently rather excited about something, then flew away again, as suddenly as they had appeared.

“Those were royal messengers,” said the cuckoo, turning to Griselda.  “They have come with a message from the king and queen to invite us to a banquet which is to be held in honour of your visit.”

“What fun!” cried Griselda.  “Do let’s go at once, cuckoo.  But, oh dear me,” she went on, with a melancholy change of tone, “I was forgetting, cuckoo.  I can’t go to the banquet.  I have nothing on but my night-gown.  I never thought of it before, for I’m not a bit cold.”

“Never mind,” said the cuckoo, “I’ll soon have that put to rights.”

[Illustration:  SHE LOOKED LIKE A FAIRY QUEEN.]