Of course they don't look the same up there," he went on, with a slight contemptuous shrug of his cuckoo shoulders; "the coarse air and the ugly things about must take the bloom off.

The wild flowers do the best, to my thinking; people don't meddle with them in their stupid, clumsy way." "But how do they get the flowers sent up to the world, cuckoo ?" asked Griselda.
"They're packed up, of course, and taken up at night when all of you are asleep," said the cuckoo.

"They're painted on elastic stuff, you see, which fits itself as the plant grows.

Why, if your eyes were as they are usually, Griselda, you couldn't even _see_ the petals the butterflies are painting now." "And the packing up," said Griselda; "do the butterflies do that too ?" "No," said the cuckoo, "the fairies look after that." "How wonderful!" exclaimed Griselda.

But before the cuckoo had time to say more a sudden tumult filled the air.