listening, contentedly enough, for the sweet, fresh notes of the
cuckoo's friendly greeting. But before it sounded again through the
silent house she was once more fast asleep. And this time she slept till
daylight had found its way into all but the _very_ darkest nooks and
crannies of the ancient dwelling.

She dressed herself carefully, for she had been warned that her aunts
loved neatness and precision; she fastened each button of her grey
frock, and tied down her hair as smooth as such a brown tangle _could_
be tied down; and, absorbed with these weighty cares, she forgot all
about the cuckoo for the time. It was not till she was sitting at
breakfast with her aunts that she remembered it, or rather was reminded
of it, by some little remark that was made about the friendly robins on
the terrace walk outside.

"Oh, aunt," she exclaimed, stopping short half-way the journey to her
mouth of a spoonful of bread and milk, "have you got a cuckoo in a
cage?"

"A cuckoo in a cage," repeated her elder aunt, Miss Grizzel; "what is
the child talking about?"

"In a cage!" echoed Miss Tabitha, "a cuckoo in a cage!"

"There is a cuckoo somewhere in the house," said Griselda; "I heard it
in the night. It couldn't have been out-of-doors, could it? It would be
too cold."

The aunts looked at each other with a little smile. "So like her
grandmother," they whispered. Then said Miss Grizzel--