Page:Mrs Molesworth - The Cuckoo Clock.djvu/188

164 had any one to play with, the garden would be perfectly lovely."

But, failing companions, she did the best she could for herself, and this was why she loved the path down into the wood so much. There was a sort of mystery about it; it might have been the path leading to the cottage of Red-Ridinghood's grandmother, or a path leading to fairyland itself. There were all kinds of queer, nice, funny noises to be heard there—in one part of it especially, where Griselda made herself a seat of some moss-grown stones, and where she came so often that she got to know all the little flowers growing close round about, and even the particular birds whose nests were hard by.

She used to sit there and fancy—fancy that she heard the wood-elves chattering under their breath, or the little underground gnomes and hammering at their fairy forges. And the tinkling of the brook in the distance sounded like the