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VI.]
RUBBED THE WRONG WAY.
125

sign of morning to be seen. There was moonlight, but nothing else, and not so very much of that, for the clouds were hurrying across the "orbed maiden's" face at such a rate, one after the other, that the light was more like a number of pale flashes than the steady, cold shining of most frosty moonlight nights. There was going to be a change of weather, and the cloud armies were collecting together from all quarters; that was the real explanation of the hurrying and skurrying Griselda saw overhead, but this, of course, she did not understand. She only saw that it looked wild and stormy, and she shivered a little, partly with cold, partly with a half-frightened feeling that she could not have explained.

"I had better go back to bed," she said to herself; "but I am not a bit sleepy."

She was just drawing-to the shutter again, when something caught her eye, and she stopped short in surprise. A little bird was outside on the window-