One day she was sitting in her favourite nest, feeling, notwithstanding the sunshine, and the flowers, and the soft sweet air, and the pleasant sounds all about, rather dull and lonely. For though it was only May, it was really quite a hot day, and Griselda had been all the morning at her lessons, and had tried very hard, and done them very well, and now she felt as if she deserved some reward. Suddenly in the distance, she heard a well-known sound, "Cuckoo, cuckoo." "Can that be the cuckoo?" she said to herself; and in a moment she felt sure that it must be. For, for some reason that I do not know enough about the habits of real "flesh and blood" cuckoos to explain, that bird was not known in the neighbourhood where Griselda's aunts lived. Some twenty miles or so further south it was heard regularly, but all this spring Griselda had never caught the sound of its familiar note, and she now remembered hearing it never came to these parts. So, "it must be my cuckoo," she said to herself. "He must be coming out to speak to me. How funny! I have never seen him by daylight." She listened. Yes, again there it was, "Cuckoo, cuckoo," as plain as possible, and nearer than before. "Cuckoo," cried Griselda, "do come and talk to me. It's such a long time since I have seen you, and I have nobody to play with." But there was no answer. Griselda held her breath to listen, but there was nothing to be heard. "Unkind cuckoo!" she exclaimed. "He is tricking me, I do believe; and to-day too, just when I was so dull and lonely." The tears came into her eyes, and she was beginning to think herself very badly used, when suddenly a rustling in the bushes beside her made her turn round, more than half expecting to see the cuckoo himself. But it was not he. The rustling went on for a minute or two without anything making its appearance, for the bushes were pretty thick just there, and any one scrambling up from the pine-wood below would have had rather hard work to get through, and indeed for a very big person such a feat would have been altogether impossible. It was not a very big person, however, who was causing all the rustling, and crunching of branches, and general commotion, which now absorbed Griselda's attention. She sat watching for another minute in perfect stillness, afraid of startling by the slightest movement the squirrel or rabbit or creature of some kind which she expected to see. At last--was that a squirrel or rabbit--that rosy, round face, with shaggy, fair hair falling over the eager blue eyes, and a general look of breathlessness and over-heatedness and determination? A squirrel or a rabbit! No, indeed, but a very sturdy, very merry, very ragged little boy.