"My aunts must have come back," thought Griselda; and so it was. In a few minutes Miss Grizzel, closely followed by Miss Tabitha, appeared at the ante-room door. "Well, my love," said Miss Grizzel anxiously, "and how are you? Has the time seemed very long while we were away?" "Oh no, thank you, Aunt Grizzel," replied Griselda, "not at all. I've been quite happy, and my cold's ever so much better, and my headache's _quite_ gone." "Come, that is good news," said Miss Grizzel. "Not that I'm exactly _surprised_," she continued, turning to Miss Tabitha, "for there really is nothing like tansy tea for a feverish cold." "Nothing," agreed Miss Tabitha; "there really is nothing like it." "Aunt Grizzel," said Griselda, after a few moments' silence, "was my grandmother quite young when she died?" "Yes, my love, very young," replied Miss Grizzel with a change in her voice. "And was her husband _very_ sorry?" pursued Griselda. "Heart-broken," said Miss Grizzel. "He did not live long after, and then you know, my dear, your father was sent to us to take care of. And now he has sent _you_--the third generation of young creatures confided to our care." "Yes," said Griselda. "My grandmother died in the summer, when all the flowers were out; and she was buried in a pretty country place, wasn't she?" "Yes," said Miss Grizzel, looking rather bewildered. "And when she was a little girl she lived with her grandfather, the old Dutch mechanic," continued Griselda, unconsciously using the very words she had heard in her vision. "He was a nice old man; and how clever of him to have made the cuckoo clock, and such lots of other pretty, wonderful things. I don't wonder little Sybilla loved him; he was so good to her. But, oh, Aunt Grizzel, _how_ pretty she was when she was a young lady! That time that she danced with my grandfather in the great saloon. And how very nice you and Aunt Tabitha looked then, too." Miss Grizzel held her very breath in astonishment; and no doubt if Miss Tabitha had known she was doing so, she would have held hers too. But Griselda lay still, gazing at the fire, quite unconscious of her aunt's surprise. "Your papa told you all these old stories, I suppose, my dear," said Miss Grizzel at last. "Oh no," said Griselda dreamily. "Papa never told me anything like that. Dorcas told me a very little, I think; at least, she made me want to know, and I asked the cuckoo, and then, you see, he showed me it all. It was so pretty." Miss Grizzel glanced at her sister. "Tabitha, my dear," she said in a low voice, "do you hear?" And Miss Tabitha, who really was not very deaf when she set herself to hear, nodded in awe-struck silence.