lied. "But, cuckoo, isn't this sea
_awfully_ big?"

"Pretty well," said the cuckoo. "Just half, or nearly half, the size of
the moon; and, no doubt, Mr. Kneebreeches has told you that the moon's
diameter and circumference are respec----"

"Oh _don't_, cuckoo!" interrupted Griselda, beseechingly. "I want to
enjoy myself, and not to have lessons. Tell me something funny, cuckoo.
Are there any mermaids in the moon-sea?"

"Not exactly," said the cuckoo.

"What a stupid way to answer," said Griselda. "There's no sense in that;
there either must be or must not be. There couldn't be half mermaids."

"I don't know about that," replied the cuckoo. "They might have been
here once and have left their tails behind them, like Bopeep's sheep,
you know; and some day they might be coming to find them again, you
know. That would do for 'not exactly,' wouldn't it?"

"Cuckoo, you're laughing at me," said Griselda. "Tell me, are there any
mermaids, or fairies, or water-sprites, or any of those sort of
creatures here?"

"I must still say 'not exactly,'" said the cuckoo. "There are beings
here, or rather there have been, and there may be again; but you,
Griselda, can know no more than this."

His tone was rather solemn, and again Griselda felt a little "eerie."

"It's a dreadfully long way from home, any way," she said. "I feel as
if, when I go back, I shall perhaps find I have been away fifty years or
so, like the little boy in the fairy story. Cuckoo, I think I would like
to go home. Mayn't I get on your back again?"

"Presently," said the cuckoo. "Don't be uneasy, Griselda. Perhaps I'll
take you home by a short cut."

"Was ever any child here before?" asked Griselda, after a little pause.

"Yes," said the cuckoo.

"And did they get safe home again?"

"Quite," said the cuckoo. "It's so silly of you, Griselda, to have all
these ideas still about far and near, and big and little, and long and
short, after all I've taught you and all you've seen."

"I'm very sorry," said Griselda humbly; "but you see, cuckoo, I can't
help it. I suppose I'm made so."

"Perhaps," said the cuckoo, meditatively.

He was silent for a minute. Then he spoke again. "Look over there,
Griselda," he said. "There's the short cut."

Griselda looked. Far, far over the sea, in the silent distance, she saw
a tiny speck of light. It was very tiny; but yet the strange thing was
that, far away as it appeared, and minute as it was, it seemed to throw
off a