Again they made Griselda think of little rippling brooks in summer, and now and then there came a sort of hum as of insects buzzing in the warm sunshine near.

This humming gradually increased, till at last Griselda was conscious of nothing more--_everything_ seemed to be humming, herself too, till at last she fell asleep.
When she opened her eyes, the ante-room and everything in it, except the arm-chair on which she was still curled up, had disappeared--melted away into a misty cloud all round her, which in turn gradually faded, till before her she saw a scene quite new and strange.

It was the first of the cuckoo's "pictures." An old, quaint room, with a high, carved mantelpiece, and a bright fire sparkling in the grate.

It was not a pretty room--it had more the look of a workshop of some kind; but it was curious and interesting.

All round, the walls were hung with clocks and strange mechanical toys.
There was a fiddler slowly fiddling, a gentleman and lady gravely dancing a minuet, a little man drawing up water in a bucket out of a glass vase in which gold fish were swimming about--all sorts of queer figures; and the clocks were even queerer.