"Oh, never!" she answered, promptly. "You see papa has to work very hard, and cannot afford it. But this has been a most beautiful birthday; and, thanks to you, Mr. Armstrong, I feel a regular Cinderella, and you are the good fairy." "I would rather be the prince." "Would you?" "Yes. You see he married Cinderella." His tone was so entirely playful that Laline attached no importance to his words, though she remembered them long afterwards. Her freedom from self-consciousness interested and pleased him. He began to feel regretful that he could not wait until this sweet, childish frankness developed into a maturer charm. This was a school-girl to pet and caress, not a woman to love as a wife. But, half-fledged bird as she was, she was yet the prettiest thing he had ever seen; and to Armstrong, who had no domestic tastes, the idea of an unworldly, unsuspicious little creature, who would obey implicitly, exact nothing in return, and contentedly spend her time alone with her needlework by her own fireside, was more agreeable than the prospect of the love and companionship of the wisest and the most helpful and devoted wife ever sent by Heaven to bless a lonely man's career. CHAPTER IV. That was a gala day in Laline's life, a day towards which, in after years, she often looked back with a swift pain at her heart. How kind they had all seemed! Wallace Armstrong was gentleness itself, and there was in his manner towards her a blending of protecting care with playful admiration peculiarly flattering to a girl in her early teens. Her father, too, was unusually indulgent; and, when he got into the _fiacre_ at Wallace's invitation, and drove back with them to the High Town and the Rue Planché, it was quite a triumphal journey, and the arrival at number seven created considerable sensation. Even Bénoîte was almost civil. Decidedly, she told herself, _Monsieur le Capitaine_ had got hold of a rich and foolish young man, to whom gold was as dross--a _riche Anglais eccentrique_, who might very possibly be coaxed into paying the arrears of monsieur's rent. So that Bénoîte, like every one else, saw everything _couleur de rose_ that evening. And when Laline at last went to bed, after a dinner--a real substantial dinner, with good red wine--her first dinner at a restaurant--and in her new hat, too, with her father and his friend--she laid her head upon her pillow, convinced of her mistake in supposing that Wallace Armstrong was a Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a morose and evil-minded Templar, when in reality he was a Prince Charming! And, while Laline slept peacefully above, dreaming of triumphal drives, of marvellous new hats, and unlimited bonbons and toys for her friends the children, Mr. Wallace Armstrong and her father, in the shabby smoke-laden _salon_ below, concocted between them the following letter for the delectation of Mr. Alexander Wallace in London,--