And do you know, missie, the night she died--she died soon after your father was born, a year after she was married--for a whole hour, from twelve to one, that cuckoo went on cuckooing in a soft, sad way, like some living creature in trouble.

Of course, we did not know anything was wrong with her, and folks said something had caught some of the springs of the works; but _I_ didn't think so, and never shall.

And----" But here Dorcas's reminiscences were abruptly brought to a close by Miss Grizzel's appearance at the other end of the terrace.
"Griselda, what are you loitering so for?
Dorcas, you should have hastened, not delayed Miss Griselda." So Griselda was hurried off to her lessons, and Dorcas to her kitchen.
But Griselda did not much mind.

She had plenty to think of and wonder about, and she liked to do her lessons in the ante-room, with the tick-tick of the clock in her ears, and the feeling that _perhaps_ the cuckoo was watching her through some invisible peep-hole in his closed doors.
"And if he sees," thought Griselda, "if he sees how hard I am trying to do my lessons well, it will perhaps make him be quick about 'considering.'" So she did try very hard.

And she didn't speak to the cuckoo when he came out to say it was four o'clock.