"What a _very_ funny house it is, Aunt Grizzel," she said, as she followed her aunt down the steps. "Every room has so many doors, and you come back to where you were just when you think you are ever so far off. I shall never be able to find my way about." "Oh yes, you will, my dear, very soon," said her aunt encouragingly. "She is very kind," thought Griselda; "but I wish she wouldn't call my lessons tasks. It makes them sound so dreadfully hard. But, any way, I'm glad I'm to do them in the room where that dear cuckoo lives." [Illustration] II _IM_PATIENT GRISELDA [Illustration] "... fairies but seldom appear; If we do wrong we must expect That it will cost us dear!" It was all very well for a few days. Griselda found plenty to amuse herself with while the novelty lasted, enough to prevent her missing _very_ badly the home she had left "over the sea," and the troop of noisy merry brothers who teased and petted her. Of course she _missed_ them, but not "dreadfully." She was neither homesick nor "dull." It was not quite such smooth sailing when lessons began. She did not dislike lessons; in fact, she had always thought she was rather fond of them. But the having to do them alone was not lively, and her teachers were very strict. The worst of all was the writing and arithmetic master, a funny little old man who wore knee-breeches and took snuff, and called her aunt "Madame," bowing formally whenever he addressed her. He screwed Griselda up into such an unnatural attitude to write her copies, that she really felt as if she would never come straight and loose again; and the arithmetic part of his instructions was even worse. Oh! what sums in addition he gave her! Griselda had never been partial to sums, and her rather easy-going governess at home had not, to tell the truth, been partial to them either. And Mr.--I can't remember the little old gentleman's name. Suppose we call him Mr. Kneebreeches--Mr. Kneebreeches, when he found this out, conscientiously put her back to the very beginning. It was dreadful, really. He came twice a week, and the days he didn't come were as bad as those he did, for he left her a whole _row_, I was going to say, but you couldn't call Mr. Kneebreeches' addition sums "rows," they were far too fat and wide across to be so spoken of!--whole slatefuls of these terrible mountains of figures to climb wearily to the top of. And not to climb _once_ up merely. _The_ terrible thing was Mr. Kneebreeches' favourite method of what he called "proving." I can't explain it--it is far beyond my poor powers--but it had something to do with cutting off the top line, after you had added it all up and had actually done the sum, you understand--cutting off the top line and adding the long rows up again without it, and then joining it on again somewhere else.