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. There was one intended to
represent the sun, moon, and planets, with one face for the sun and
another for the moon, and gold and silver stars slowly circling round
them; there was another clock with a tiny trumpeter perched on a ledge
above the face, who blew a horn for the hours. I cannot tell you half
the strange and wonderful things there were.

Griselda was so interested in looking at all these queer machines, that
she did not for some time observe the occupant of the room. And no
wonder; he was sitting in front of a little table, so perfectly still,
much more still than the un-living figures around him. He was examining,
with a magnifying glass, some small object he held in his hand, so
closely and intently that Griselda, forgetting she was only looking at a
"picture," almost held her breath for fear she should disturb him. He
was a very old man, his coat was worn and threadbare in several places,
looking as if he spent a great part of his life in one position. Yet he
did not look _poor_, and his face, when at last he lifted it, was mild
and intelligent and very earnest.

While Griselda was watching him closely there came a soft tap at the
door, and a little girl danced into the room. The dearest little girl
you ever saw, and _so_ funnily dressed! Her thick brown hair, rather
lighter than Griselda's, was tied in two long plaits down her back. She
had a short red skirt with silver braid round the bottom, and a white
chemisette with beautiful lace at the throat and wrists, and over that
again a black velvet bodice, also trimmed with silver. And she had a
great many trinkets, necklaces, and bracelets, and ear-rings, and a sort
of little silver coronet; no, it was not like a coronet, it was a band
with a square piece of silver fastened so as to stand up at each side of
her head something like a horse's blinkers, only they were not placed
over her eyes.

She made quite a jingle as she came into the room, and the old man
looked up with a smile of pleasure.

"Well, my darling, and are you all ready for your _fete_?" he s