“Am I to walk along there?” she said softly to the cuckoo.

“No,” he replied; “wait.”

Griselda waited, looking still, and presently in the middle of the shining streak she saw something slowly moving—­something from which the light came, for the nearer it got to her the shorter grew the glowing path, and behind the moving object the sea looked no brighter than before it had appeared.

At last—­at last, it came quite near—­near enough for Griselda to distinguish clearly what it was.

It was a little boat—­the prettiest, the loveliest little boat that ever was seen; and it was rowed by a little figure that at first sight Griselda felt certain was a fairy.  For it was a child with bright hair and silvery wings, which with every movement sparkled and shone like a thousand diamonds.

Griselda sprang up and clapped her hands with delight.  At the sound, the child in the boat turned and looked at her.  For one instant she could not remember where she had seen him before; then she exclaimed, joyfully—­

“It is Phil!  Oh, cuckoo, it is Phil.  Have you turned into a fairy, Phil?”

But, alas, as she spoke the light faded away, the boy’s figure disappeared, the sea and the shore and the sky were all as they had been before, lighted only by the faint, strange gleaming of the stars.  Only the boat remained.  Griselda saw it close to her, in the shallow water, a few feet from where she stood.

“Cuckoo,” she exclaimed in a tone of reproach and disappointment, “where is Phil gone?  Why did you send him away?”

“I didn’t send him away,” said the cuckoo.  “You don’t understand.  Never mind, but get into the boat.  It’ll be all right, you’ll see.”

“But are we to go away and leave Phil here, all alone at the other side of the moon?” said Griselda, feeling ready to cry.

“Oh, you silly girl!” said the cuckoo.  “Phil’s all right, and in some ways he has a great deal more sense than you, I can tell you.  Get into the boat and make yourself comfortable; lie down at the bottom and cover yourself up with the mantle.  You needn’t be afraid of wetting your feet a little, moon water never gives cold.  There, now.”

Griselda did as she was told.  She was beginning to feel rather tired, and it certainly was very comfortable at the bottom of the boat, with the nice warm feather-mantle well tucked round her.

“Who will row?” she said sleepily. “You can’t, cuckoo, with your tiny little claws, you could never hold the oars, I’m——­”

“Hush!” said the cuckoo; and whether he rowed or not Griselda never knew.

Off they glided somehow, but it seemed to Griselda that somebody rowed, for she heard the soft dip, dip of the oars as they went along, so regularly that she couldn’t help beginning to count in time—­one, two, three, four—­on, on—­she thought she had got nearly to a hundred, when——­

CHAPTER XI.