It was not a very bad cold, I must confess, but her aunts made rather a fuss about it.

They wanted her to stay in bed, but to this Griselda so much objected that they did not insist upon it.
"It would be so dull," she said piteously.

"Please let me stay in the ante-room, for all my things are there; and, then, there's the cuckoo." Aunt Grizzel smiled at this, and Griselda got her way.

But even in the ante-room it was rather dull.

Miss Grizzel and Miss Tabitha were obliged to go out, to drive all the way to Merrybrow Hall, as Lady Lavander sent a messenger to say that she had an attack of influenza, and wished to see her friends at once.
Miss Tabitha began to cry--she was so tender-hearted.
"Troubles never come singly," said Miss Grizzel, by way of consolation.
"No, indeed, they never come singly," said Miss Tabitha, shaking her head and wiping her eyes.
So off they set; and Griselda, in her arm-chair by the ante-room fire, with some queer little old-fashioned books of her aunts', which she had already read more than a dozen times, beside her by way of amusement, felt that there was one comfort in her troubles--she had escaped the long weary drive to her godmother's.
But it was very dull.