"Not a bad idea," decided the little girl, after giving it consideration. "I think if you don't mind I will get you to come along now to Finchley Road and buy for me the mechanical rocking-horse that has been talked about for some time."
"Under the old arrangement," he replied readily, "I should have been only too pleased, but the new rules say that children must buy presents for their father and mother."
"How can we," getting rather cross, "how in the world can we when we have no money?"
"I think," he said, "that it is expected you should go to work and earn some."
"Never heard such nonsense in the whole course of my life," she declared, using a grown-up remark. "It's perfect rubbish. Do you mean to say that I shall have to go to concerts and sing as mamma does?"
"But I can't sing. I can't sing nearly well enough to earn money."
"Well," said her father, after considering the matter, "what about going out as charwoman? You'd get two shillings a day and your lunch."
She stood there for a few minutes, not daring to speak, and overcome with cares and responsibilities. Some one touched her on the shoulder, and she looked up.
"Do you like the altogether different you asked for?"
"No," she answered, "I don't like it at all. I wish now I hadn't put back the hands of the clock."
"You mean to say that that was how you did it? You dare to tell me it was nothing cleverer than that? Now, just to punish you," said the fairy, speaking with stern decision, "I shall send you away to the old sort of world, and you'll simply have to make the best of it."
The bedroom door opened, and nurse came in. The little girl, snuggling down into her warm, comfortable bed, kept her eyes shut.
"Bless her!" said nurse to herself. "Sleeping as sound as a top. That's what comes of having nothing on your mind to worry you!"
Not a sound broke the exquisite hush of the early morning.
The old courtyard, with its tiled pavement, its cool fountain, and its cooing doves, the dog asleep in the sunshine, made a picture of perfect peace.
The house, once the Château of a great family that had fallen on evil days, was grey and old, and beautiful still, though now merely _une pension de demoiselles_.
It was August, when, as a rule, all the merry throng had scattered from the Château to their respective homes, leaving it to its former dignity and quiet. Mademoiselle usually went to England, perhaps seeking fresh pupils, or to enjoy the sea breezes on the Normandy coast.