Rising from the table he kissed his unhappy daughter affectionately, and, bidding her good-night, he went to the club, where he paid his delinquent dues and house charges and set out once more upon a tolerably care-free existence for five days at least. "A short life and a merry one!" he muttered to himself, as he paid in a hundred dollars for a supply of red and blue chips. [Illustration: POOR GASMERILDA SAT WHITE-FACED] Meanwhile, poor Gasmerilda sat white-faced, and eyes wide with fear and perplexity, staring at that horrible bale of straw that occupied the middle of the floor of her dainty boudoir. She had no more idea of how to spin it into gold than she had of making over her last year's gingham bath-robe into this year's panne-velvet opera gown. Hourly her distress grew, until finally the floodgates of her tears broke, and she burst into a passionate convulsion of weeping. But, even as the tears began to flow, there came a faint golden tinkle on the jeweled 'phone that stood on her escritoire. At first she paid no attention to the unexpected tintinnabulation, but the tinkling soon became more pronounced and so persistent that she finally answered it. "Is that you, Gasmerilda?" came a quaint little voice over the wire. "Yes," she sobbed. "Who is this?" "There are tears in your voice, Gasmerilda," came the quaint little voice. "They are all over the place," wept the unhappy girl. [Illustration: "I AM YOUR FAIRY GODMOTHER, GASMERILDA"] "And I know why," said the little voice, sympathetically. "I am your fairy godmother, Gasmerilda, and I have not ceased to watch over you. Your father has negotiated a loan on your remarkable gift of spinning straw into gold, has he not?" "Yes," sobbed Gasmerilda, "and I have no such gift." "Well, don't worry, my child," said the little voice. "When you were a baby you once offered a part of your school orange to a starving kitten, and she has not forgotten it. I was that kitten and I have kept my eye on you ever since, and now I am going to help you out. If you will do exactly what I tell you to do all will be well." Gasmerilda, with a great sigh of relief, promised to be faithful to her fairy godmother's instructions. "Oh, you dear!" she cried, impulsively. "Go to-morrow, the first thing in the morning," said the fairy godmother, "to the United States Assay Office on Wall Street, taking with you the money your father gave you this evening at dinner, and buy a one-thousand-dollar bar of gold." "But, Fairy Godmother," Gasmerilda interrupted, "I--I must use that money to pay off my bridge I. O. U.'s to-morrow." "I have arranged for all that," laughed the fairy godmother. "Those I. O. U.'s will never be presented. Transforming myself into a mouse, I have entered the escritoires of the ladies holding your notes of hand, and have eaten every single one of them." Gasmerilda's heart leaped with joy. "Oh, Fairy Godmother!" she cried. "Can't you get rid of father's note in the same way?"