The noise of the door opening made her look round.

“Phil,” she cried, “my own little Phil; where have you been to?  You didn’t know I was waiting here for you, did you?”

“Mother, mother!” shouted Phil, darting into his mother’s arms.

But Griselda drew back into the shadow of the doorway, and tears filled her eyes as for a minute or two she listened to the cooings and caressings of the mother and son.

Only for a minute, however.  Then Phil called to her.

“Mother, mother,” he cried again, “you must kiss Griselda, too!  She’s the little girl that is so kind, and plays with me; and she has no mother,” he added in a lower tone.

The lady put her arm round Griselda, and kissed her, too.  She did not seem surprised.

“I think I know about Griselda,” she said very kindly, looking into her face with her gentle eyes, blue and clear like Phil’s.

And then Griselda found courage to say how uneasy she was about the anxiety her aunts would be feeling, and a messenger was sent off at once to tell of her being safe at the farm.

But Griselda herself the kind lady would not let go till she had had some nice supper with Phil, and was both warmed and rested.

“And what were you about, children, to lose your way?” she asked presently.

“I took Griselda to see a place that I thought was the way to fairyland, and then we stayed to build a house for the fairies, in case they come, and then we came out at the wrong side, and it got dark,” explained Phil.

“And was it the way to fairyland?” asked his mother, smiling.

Griselda shook her head as she replied—­

“Phil doesn’t understand yet,” she said gently.  “He isn’t old enough.  The way to the true fairyland is hard to find, and we must each find it for ourselves, mustn’t we?”

She looked up in the lady’s face as she spoke, and saw that she understood.

“Yes, dear child,” she answered softly, and perhaps a very little sadly.  “But Phil and you may help each other, and I perhaps may help you both.”

Griselda slid her hand into the lady’s.  “You’re not going to take Phil away, are you?” she whispered.

“No, I have come to stay here,” she answered, “and Phil’s father is coming too, soon.  We are going to live at the White House—­the house on the other side of the wood, on the way to Merrybrow.  Are you glad, children?”

* * * * *

Griselda had a curious dream that night—­merely a dream, nothing else.  She dreamt that the cuckoo came once more; this time, he told her, to say “good-bye.”

“For you will not need me now,” he said.

“I leave you in good hands, Griselda.  You have friends now who will understand you—­friends who will help you both to work and to play.  Better friends than the mandarins, or the butterflies, or even than your faithful old cuckoo.”