Again Miss Grizzel smiled, the same odd yet pleased smile that Griselda had seen on her face at breakfast.  “Just what Sybilla used to say,” she murmured.  “Well, my dear,” she added aloud, “it is quite right he should say, ‘How do you do?’ to you.  It is the first time he has seen you, though many a year ago he knew your dear grandmother, and your father, too, when he was a little boy.  You will find him a good friend, and one that can teach you many lessons.”

“What, Aunt Grizzel?” inquired Griselda, looking puzzled.

“Punctuality, for one thing, and faithful discharge of duty,” replied Miss Grizzel.

“May I come to see the cuckoo—­to watch for him coming out, sometimes?” asked Griselda, who felt as if she could spend all day looking up at the clock, watching for her little friend’s appearance.

“You will see him several times a day,” said her aunt, “for it is in this little room I intend you to prepare your tasks.  It is nice and quiet, and nothing to disturb you, and close to the room where your Aunt Tabitha and I usually sit.”

So saying, Miss Grizzel opened a second door in the little ante-room, and, to Griselda’s surprise, at the foot of a short flight of stairs through another door, half open, she caught sight of her Aunt Tabitha, knitting quietly by the fire, in the room in which they had breakfasted.

“What a very funny house it is, Aunt Grizzel,” she said, as she followed her aunt down the steps.  “Every room has so many doors, and you come back to where you were just when you think you are ever so far off.  I shall never be able to find my way about.”

“Oh yes, you will, my dear, very soon,” said her aunt encouragingly.

“She is very kind,” thought Griselda; “but I wish she wouldn’t call my lessons tasks.  It makes them sound so dreadfully hard.  But, any way, I’m glad I’m to do them in the room where that dear cuckoo lives.”

CHAPTER II.

IMPATIENT GRISELDA.

      “... fairies but seldom appear;
    If we do wrong we must expect
      That it will cost us dear!”

It was all very well for a few days.  Griselda found plenty to amuse herself with while the novelty lasted, enough to prevent her missing very badly the home she had left “over the sea,” and the troop of noisy merry brothers who teased and petted her.  Of course she missed them, but not “dreadfully.”  She was neither homesick nor “dull.”

It was not quite such smooth sailing when lessons began.  She did not dislike lessons; in fact, she had always thought she was rather fond of them.  But the having to do them alone was not lively, and her teachers were very strict.  The worst of all was the writing and arithmetic master, a funny little old man who wore knee-breeches and took snuff, and called her aunt “Madame,” bowing formally whenever he addressed her.  He screwed Griselda