"Tabitha," continued Miss Grizzel in the same tone, "it is wonderful! Ah, yes, how true it is, Tabitha, that 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy'" (for Miss Grizzel was a well-read old lady, you see); "and from the very first, Tabitha, we always had a feeling that the child was strangely like Sybilla." "Strangely like Sybilla," echoed Miss Tabitha. "May she grow up as good, if not quite as beautiful--_that_ we could scarcely expect; and may she be longer spared to those that love her," added Miss Grizzel, bending over Griselda, while two or three tears slowly trickled down her aged cheeks. "See, Tabitha, the dear child is fast asleep. How sweet she looks! I trust by to-morrow morning she will be quite herself again; her cold is so much better." [Illustration] VI RUBBED THE WRONG WAY [Illustration] "For now and then there comes a day When everything goes wrong." Griselda's cold _was_ much better by "to-morrow morning." In fact, I might almost say it was quite well. But Griselda herself did not feel quite well, and saying this reminds me that it is hardly sense to speak of a _cold_ being better or well--for a cold's being "well" means that it is not there at all, out of existence, in short, and if a thing is out of existence how can we say anything about it? Children, I feel quite in a hobble--I cannot get my mind straight about it--please think it over and give me your opinion. In the meantime, I will go on about Griselda. She felt just a little ill--a sort of feeling that sometimes is rather nice, sometimes "very extremely" much the reverse! She felt in the humour for being petted, and having beef-tea, and jelly, and sponge cake with her tea, and for a day or two this was all very well. She _was_ petted, and she had lots of beef-tea, and jelly, and grapes, and sponge cakes, and everything nice, for her aunts, as you must have seen by this time, were really very, very kind to her in every way in which they understood how to be so. But after a few days of the continued petting, and the beef-tea and the jelly and all the rest of it, it occurred to Miss Grizzel, who had a good large bump of "common sense," that it might be possible to overdo this sort of thing. "Tabitha," she said to her sister, when they were sitting together in the evening after Griselda had gone to bed, "Tabitha, my dear, I think the child is quite well again now. It seems to me it would be well to send a note to good Mr. Kneebreeches, to say that she will be able to resume her studies the day after to-morrow." "The day after to-morrow," repeated Miss Tabitha. "The day after to-morrow--to say that she will be able to resume her studies the day after to-morrow--oh yes, certainly. It would be very well to send a note to good Mr. Kneebreeches, my dear Grizzel."