Page:Mrs Molesworth - The Cuckoo Clock.djvu/196

170 "If it isn't a garden it's grounds, private grounds, and nobody should come without leave. This path leads down to the wood, and there's a door in the wall at the bottom to get into the lane. You may go down that way, little boy. No one comes scrambling up the way you did."

"But I want to find the cuckoo," said the little boy. "I do so want to find the cuckoo."

His voice sounded almost as if he were going to cry, and his pretty, hot, flushed face puckered up. Griselda's heart smote her; she looked at him more carefully. He was such a very little boy, after all; she did not like to be cross to him.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Five and a bit. I had a birthday after the summer, and if I'm good, nurse says perhaps I'll have one after next summer too. Do you ever have birthdays?" he went on, peering up at Griselda. "Nurse says she used to when she was young, but she never has any now."