The unhappy man gazed long and anxiously at the pale face before him, and then his heart softened, as it always had done.

"All right, my child," he sighed, as he tossed the exact amount to her across the table. Then his face grew stern.

"Gasmerilda," he said, "your extravagance having brought us to this, I may as well inform you now as at any other time that it is up to you to get us out of trouble, and I have to-day been forced to enter into negotiations with the Pactolean Trust Company by which you are to be capitalized. Hereafter, my child, you are to become a dividend-paying investment instead of twin sister to a sinking fund."

"What can you mean, father?" cried the girl, her face blanching with fear.

The miller thereupon recounted to her in full detail the incidents of the morning, and revealed to her astounded mind the preposterous claims he had made on her behalf.

"But father," she protested, "I have no such gift."

"You will excuse me for refusing to discuss the matter further with you, Gasmerilda," he replied, coldly. "If it so happens that you have no such gift you must devise some method of getting it. I have given my word, and as a dutiful daughter you must make good."

Turning to the butler, the miller asked:

"James, has a bale of straw arrived here to-day from Colonel Midas?"

"Yes, sir," said the butler. "It is down-stairs in the cellar, sir."

"Good!" said the miller. "You will have it carried up to Miss Miller's dressing-room at once."

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sionate 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 p.r.o.nounced 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I AM YOUR FAIRY G.o.dMOTHER, GASMERILDA"]

"And I know why," said the little voice, sympathetically. "I am your fairy G.o.dmother, 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 G.o.dmother's instructions.

"Oh, you dear!" she cried, impulsively.

"Go to-morrow, the first thing in the morning," said the fairy G.o.dmother, "to the United States a.s.say 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 G.o.dmother," 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 G.o.dmother. "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 G.o.dmother!" she cried. "Can't you get rid of father's note in the same way?"

"No, my dear," sighed the little voice. "That note, unfortunately, is stored away in a steel vault, and my teeth are not strong enough to nibble through that. I have a more business-like method to get you both out of your troubles. After you have purchased the bar of gold, take it home with you and devise some convenient means of getting rid of the straw without anybody seeing you do it. The best way to do this will be to carry an armful of it at a time up on to the roof of your house and let it blow away; and then, when next Monday comes, and your father is required to deliver the first consignment of the precious metal to Colonel Midas, go with him to the Colonel's office, yourself, taking the gold bar with you, and see that it is really delivered. Wear your most bewitching hat, and don't fail to remember what a woman's eyes were given her for."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" cried Gasmerilda, a great wave of happiness sweeping over her. "If I could get at you, dear Fairy G.o.dmother, over the 'phone, I should hug you to death."

"That is all right, child. My reward will come later," replied the fairy G.o.dmother. "When your profits begin to come in you may pay me a commission of ten per cent. on all you get."

"Gladly. I'll make it fifteen per cent.," cried the grateful girl. "But how shall you be paid?"

"By check, dear, drawn to the order of The Fairy's Aid Society of America, of which I am the president," was the answer. "The address is just Wall Street, New York. And now, sweet dreams, my beloved ward. The sun of your troubles has set, and the dawn of prosperity is here."

With a happy smile Gasmerilda wished her kindly friend good-night, and retired to her couch and slept the sleep of a weary child. Bright and early the next morning, with her little gold-chain purse containing the necessary funds dangling from her chatelaine, she appeared at the a.s.say office, and purchased there a s.h.i.+ning bar of the l.u.s.trous metal, returning to her home in time for luncheon.

"Well, daughter," said the miller, as he met her in the hallway, "how does the good work proceed?"

"Very well, indeed, father," she said, with a cheery smile. "I'm a little out of practise, but I managed to spin about ninety-eight dollars' worth last night before going to bed."

The miller blinked amazedly at his daughter. This answer was indeed the most extraordinary subst.i.tute for the floods of tears he had expected to greet his question.

"You--you--you dud--don't--m--m--mean to sus--say--" he stammered.

"Father, dear, did you ever try to cut calves-foot jelly with a steel knife?" she asked.

"Yes, child, yes--but what of that?" he demanded, completely nonplussed.

"Well, dear," she answered, kissing him on the tip end of his nose, "that is hard labor compared to spinning gold out of straw."

She ran from him, laughing merrily as she hurried up the stairs to her room, while he, staggering back against the newel-post of the staircase, leaned on it, breathing heavily.

"If that's the case," he said, as with trembling hands he took a set of false whiskers and a steerage ticket for Naples from his pocket, "I shall not need these."

Nevertheless, prudence bade him wait until he had seen the gold before destroying the paraphernalia of his possible flight, and oh, the joy of that Sat.u.r.day morning, when Gasmerilda, having, by an almost super-human effort, having rid herself of the straw as her fairy G.o.dmother had bade her to do, led her trembling father into her boudoir and showed him the glittering bar!

"Are you sure it's real?" he quavered.

"I have had it stamped at the a.s.say office, father," she replied. "See!"

And she showed him the stamps of the authorized government test.