Far, far over the sea, in the silent distance, she saw a tiny speck of light.

It was very tiny; but yet the strange thing was that, far away as it appeared, and minute as it was, it seemed to throw off a thread of light to Griselda's very feet--right across the great sheet of faintly gleaming water.

And as Griselda looked, the thread seemed to widen and grow, becoming at the same time brighter and clearer, till at last it lay before her like a path of glowing light.
"Am I to walk along there ?" she said softly to the cuckoo.
"No," he replied; "wait." Griselda waited, looking still, and presently in the middle of the shining streak she saw something slowly moving--something from which the light came, for the nearer it got to her the shorter grew the glowing path, and behind the moving object the sea looked no brighter than before it had appeared.
At last--at last, it came quite near--near enough for Griselda to distinguish clearly what it was.
It was a little boat--the prettiest, the loveliest little boat that ever was seen; and it was rowed by a little figure that at first sight Griselda felt certain was a fairy.

For it was a child with bright hair and silvery wings, which with every movement sparkled and shone like a thousand diamonds.
Griselda sprang up and clapped her hands with delight.

At the sound, the child in the boat turned and looked at her.