"Thank you, Dorcas. I hope it will be all right, and that Lady Lavander won't say anything against it. I dare say she won't. I feel ever so much happier this morning, Dorcas; and I'm very sorry I was so rude to Aunt Grizzel, for of course I know I should obey her."
"That's right, missie," said Dorcas approvingly.
"It seems to me, Dorcas," said Griselda dreamily, when, a few minutes later, she was standing by the window while the old servant brushed out her thick, wavy hair, "it seems to me, Dorcas, that it's all 'obeying orders'
together. There's the sun now, just getting up, and the moon just going to bed—they are always obeying, aren't they? I wonder why it should be so hard for people—for children, at least."
"To be sure, missie, you do put it a way of your own," replied Dorcas, somewhat mystified; "but I see how you mean, I think, and it's quite true. And it is a hard lesson to learn."
"I want to learn it well, Dorcas," said Griselda, resolutely. "So will you please tell Aunt Grizzel that I'm very sorry about last night, and I'll do just as she likes about staying in my room or anything. But, if she would let me, I'd far rather go down and do my lessons as usual for Mr. Kneebreeches. I won't ask to go out in the garden; but I would like to please Aunt Grizzel by doing my lessons very well."
Dorcas was both delighted and astonished. Never had she known her little "missie" so altogether submissive and reasonable.
"I only hope the child's not going to be ill," she said to herself. But she proved a skilful ambassadress, notwithstanding her misgivings; and Griselda's imprisonment confined her only to the bounds of the house and terrace walk, instead of within the four walls of her own little room, as she had feared.
Lessons were very well done that day, and Mr. Kneebreeches' report was all that could be wished.
"I am particularly gratified," he remarked to Miss Grizzel, "by the intelligence and interest Miss Griselda displays with regard to the study of astronomy, which I have recently begun to give her some elementary instruction in. And, indeed, I have no fault to find with the way in which any of the young lady's tasks are performed."