Two mandariny-looking young ladies, with porcelain faces and three-cornered head-dresses, stepped forward and led Griselda into a small ante-room, where lay waiting for her the most magnificent dress you ever saw. But how _do_ you think they dressed her? It was all by nodding. They nodded to the blue and silver embroidered jacket, and in a moment it had fitted itself on to her. They nodded to the splendid scarlet satin skirt, made very short in front and very long behind, and before Griselda knew where she was, it was adjusted quite correctly. They nodded to the head-dress, and the sashes, and the necklaces and bracelets, and forthwith they all arranged themselves. Last of all, they nodded to the dearest, sweetest little pair of high-heeled shoes imaginable--all silver, and blue, and gold, and scarlet, and everything mixed up together, _only_ they were rather a stumpy shape about the toes, and Griselda's bare feet were encased in them, and, to her surprise, quite comfortably so. "They don't hurt me a bit," she said aloud; "yet they didn't look the least the shape of my foot." But her attendants only nodded; and turning round, she saw the cuckoo waiting for her. He did not speak either, rather to her annoyance, but gravely led the way through one grand room after another to the grandest of all, where the entertainment was evidently just about to begin. And everywhere there were mandarins, rows and rows, who all set to work nodding as fast as Griselda appeared. She began to be rather tired of royal salutes, and was glad when, at last, in profound silence, the procession, consisting of the cuckoo and herself, and about half a dozen "mandarins," came to a halt before a kind of dais, or raised seat, at the end of the hall. Upon this dais stood a chair--a throne of some kind, Griselda supposed it to be--and upon this was seated the grandest and gravest personage she had yet seen. "Is he the king of the mandarins?" she whispered. But the cuckoo did not reply; and before she had time to repeat the question, the very grand and grave person got down from his seat, and coming towards her, offered her his hand, at the same time nodding--first once, then two or three times together, then once again. Griselda seemed to know what he meant. He was asking her to dance. "Thank you," she said. "I can't dance _very_ well, but perhaps you won't mind."