hort, and if a thing is out of existence how can we say anything
about it? Children, I feel quite in a hobble--I cannot get my mind
straight about it--please think it over and give me your opinion. In
the meantime, I will go on about Griselda.

She felt just a little ill--a sort of feeling that sometimes is rather
nice, sometimes "very extremely" much the reverse! She felt in the
humour for being petted, and having beef-tea, and jelly, and sponge cake
with her tea, and for a day or two this was all very well. She _was_
petted, and she had lots of beef-tea, and jelly, and grapes, and sponge
cakes, and everything nice, for her aunts, as you must have seen by this
time, were really very, very kind to her in every way in which they
understood how to be so.

But after a few days of the continued petting, and the beef-tea and the
jelly and all the rest of it, it occurred to Miss Grizzel, who had a
good large bump of "common sense," that it might be possible to overdo
this sort of thing.

"Tabitha," she said to her sister, when they were sitting together in
the evening after Griselda had gone to bed, "Tabitha, my dear, I think
the child is quite well again now. It seems to me it would be well to
send a note to good Mr. Kneebreeches, to say that she will be able to
resume her studies the day after to-morrow."

"The day after to-morrow," repeated Miss Tabitha. "The day after
to-morrow--to say that she will be able to resume her studies the day
after to-morrow--oh yes, certainly. It would be very well to send a note
to good Mr. Kneebreeches, my dear Grizzel."

"I thought you would agree with me," said Miss Grizzel, with a sigh of
relief (as if poor Miss Tabitha during all the last half-century had
ever ventured to do anything else), getting up to fetch her writing
materials as she spoke. "It is such a satisfaction to consult together
about what we do. I was only a little afraid of being hard upon the
child, but as you agree with me, I have no longer any misgiving."

"Any misgiving, oh dear, no!" said Miss Tabitha. "You have no reason
for any misgiving, I am sure, my dear Grizzel."

So the note was written and despatched, and the next morning when, about
twelve o'clock, Griselda made her appearance in the little drawing-room
where her aunts usually sat, looking, it must be confessed, very plump
and rosy for an invalid, Miss Grizzel broached the subject.

"I have written to request Mr. Kneebreeches to resume his instruction