She left old Mr. Silverton at his gate, and he assured her with a kiss that he wasn't a bit disappointed at the wonderful disappearance, but that it was all certainly a very remarkable affair indeed. Rosella thought so too. Then she turned and walked thoughtfully home. THE CUCKOO THAT LIVED IN THE CLOCK-HOUSE It was rather a ramshackle, badly-built wooden house, in which the Cuckoo lived. Outside it looked smart enough, but inside, repairs were badly needed. It had been handed down from father to son, and over the front door, which was at the top of the house, stood a beautifully carved statue of their ancestor, Sir Cuckoo de Cuckoo. The Clock-House was situated not far from the Dolls' House, backed by a flowery wall in a small department of Nursery Land ruled over by Robert and Lucy. Lucy was ground landlady of the Clock-House, and it was her daily privilege to wind up its affairs. No one ever knocked at the Cuckoo's front door, because it had no number; there was a round dozen of numbers in the immediate neighbourhood. The pendulum, whose tongue never ceased to wag once it was wound up, remarked, that two firm hands were required to keep things in order. As to the chains, they regularly got weighed down under the strain of responsibility, and a heavy weight it was. So, as one could not summon the Cuckoo at will, the only thing to do was to wait and see it when it chose to appear, and then--as likely as not, if nobody was about--Robert would seize the opportunity to take pot-shots at it with his pea-shooter. So far he had invariably missed. Sometimes it kept an appointment with him punctually at the hour, sometimes it didn't. Occasionally, it came out at odd times, and then remained indoors altogether. When that happened for a more than usually long period, it was sure to be because the poor Cuckoo felt indisposed in its bellows; and when it became apparent that something had gone wrong with the inmate of the Clock-House, an entrance had to be effected by the back door and a dose of oil administered. Whereupon the front door would fly open and the Cuckoo appear again on the threshold--it never ventured further--bow to the multitude, or to empty space, and pipe "Cuc--koo!" just as many times as it felt inclined at the moment. One fine afternoon in spring, when the Cuckoo came out punctually, and went through its performance of three bows with a Cuckoo call after each salutation, there happened to be a fresh inmate all alone in the nursery. This was Tabiatha, the new kitten, cosily reposing in her new basket under the table. "Aha! Poultry!" mewed Tabiatha, lying low, opening a lazy but watchful eye, and gazing upwards. "Bless my tail! You're a tender morsel, I'll be bound--small, but a tit-bit!" So thought the kitten, with an increasing feeling of longing in the chest. It had sounded to Tabiatha like an echo of the call she had heard so recently in the lane near the old farm at home.