“Yes,” said Griselda, stroking gently the soft feathers which seemed to be close under her hand.  “Yes, I feel you.”

“Well, then,” said the cuckoo, “put your arms round my neck, and hold me firm.  I’ll lift you up.”

“How can you talk such nonsense, cuckoo?” said Griselda.  “Why, one of my little fingers would clasp your neck.  How can I put my arms round it?”

“Try,” said the cuckoo.

Somehow Griselda had to try.

She held out her arms in the cuckoo’s direction, as if she expected his neck to be about the size of a Shetland pony’s, or a large Newfoundland dog’s; and, to her astonishment, so it was!  A nice, comfortable, feathery neck it felt—­so soft that she could not help laying her head down upon it, and nestling in the downy cushion.

“That’s right,” said the cuckoo.

Then he seemed to give a little spring, and Griselda felt herself altogether lifted on to his back.  She lay there as comfortably as possible—­it felt so firm as well as soft.  Up he flew a little way—­then stopped short.

“Are you all right?” he inquired.  “You’re not afraid of falling off?”

“Oh no,” said Griselda; “not a bit.”

“You needn’t be,” said the cuckoo, “for you couldn’t if you tried.  I’m going on, then.”

“Where to?” said Griselda.

“Up the chimney first,” said the cuckoo.

“But there’ll never be room,” said Griselda.  “I might perhaps crawl up like a sweep, hands and knees, you know, like going up a ladder.  But stretched out like this—­it’s just as if I were lying on a sofa—­I couldn’t go up the chimney.”

“Couldn’t you?” said the cuckoo.  “We’ll see. I intend to go, any way, and to take you with me.  Shut your eyes—­one, two, three—­here goes—­we’ll be up the chimney before you know.”

It was quite true.  Griselda shut her eyes tight.  She felt nothing but a pleasant sort of rush.  Then she heard the cuckoo’s voice, saying—­

“Well, wasn’t that well done?  Open your eyes and look about you.”

Griselda did so.  Where were they?

They were floating about above the top of the house, which Griselda saw down below them, looking dark and vast.  She felt confused and bewildered.

“Cuckoo,” she said, “I don’t understand.  Is it I that have grown little, or you that have grown big?”

“Whichever you please,” said the cuckoo.  “You have forgotten.  I told you long ago it is all a matter of fancy.”

“Yes, if everything grew little together,” persisted Griselda; “but it isn’t everything.  It’s just you or me, or both of us.  No, it can’t be both of us.  And I don’t think it can be me, for if any of me had grown little all would, and my eyes haven’t grown little, for everything looks as big as usual, only you a great deal bigger.  My eyes can’t have grown bigger without the rest of me, surely, for the moon looks just the same.  And I must have grown little, or else we couldn’t have got up the chimney.  Oh, cuckoo, you have put all my thinking into such a muddle!”