"Quite," replied Griselda, looking about her with great satisfaction. "Are all cuckoo clocks like this when you get up inside them?" she inquired. "I can't think how there's room for this dear little place between the clock and the wall. Is it a hole cut out of the wall on purpose, cuckoo?" "Hush!" said the cuckoo, "we've got other things to talk about. First, shall I lend you one of my mantles? You may feel cold." "I don't just now," replied Griselda; "but perhaps I _might_." She looked at her little bare feet as she spoke, and wondered why _they_ weren't cold, for it was very chilblainy weather. The cuckoo stood up, and with one of his claws reached from a corner where it was hanging a cloak which Griselda had not before noticed. For it was hanging wrong side out, and the lining was red velvet, very like what the sides of the little room were covered with, so it was no wonder she had not noticed it. Had it been hanging the _right_ side out she must have done so; this side was so very wonderful! It was all feathers--feathers of every shade and colour, but beautifully worked in, somehow, so as to lie quite smoothly and evenly, one colour melting away into another like those in a prism, so that you could hardly tell where one began and another ended. "What a _lovely_ cloak!" said Griselda, wrapping it round her and feeling even more comfortable than before, as she watched the rays of the little lamp in the roof--I think I was forgetting to tell you that the cuckoo's boudoir was lighted by a dear little lamp set into the red velvet roof like a pearl in a ring--playing softly on the brilliant colours of the feather mantle. "It's better than lovely," said the cuckoo, "as you shall see. Now, Griselda," he continued, in the tone of one coming to business--"now, Griselda, let us talk." "We have been talking," said Griselda, "ever so long. I am very comfortable. When you say 'let us talk' like that, it makes me forget all I wanted to say. Just let me sit still and say whatever comes into my head." "That won't do," said the cuckoo; "we must have a plan of action." "A what?" said Griselda. "You see you _have_ a great deal to learn," said the cuckoo triumphantly. "You don't understand what I say." "But I didn't come up here to learn," said Griselda; "I can do that down there;" and she nodded her head in the direction of the ante-room table. "I want to play." "Just so," said the cuckoo; "that's what I want to talk about. What do you call 'play'--blindman's-buff and that sort of thing?" "No," said Griselda, considering. "I'm getting rather too big for that kind of play. Besides, cuckoo, you and I alone couldn't have much fun at blindman's-buff; there'd be only me to catch you or you to catch me." "Oh, we could easily get more," said the cuckoo. "The mandarins would be pleased to join." "The mandarins!" repeated Griselda. "Why, cuckoo, they're not alive! How could they play?"