“But in the end the young prince married the beautiful Florabella,” said Madame de Cintré, “and carried her off to live with him in the Land of the Pink Sky. There she was so happy that she forgot all her troubles, and went out to drive every day of her life in an ivory coach drawn by five hundred white mice. Poor Florabella,” she exclaimed to Newman, “had suffered terribly.”
“She had had nothing to eat for six months,” said little Blanche.
“Yes, but when the six months were over, she had a plum-cake as big as that ottoman,” said Madame de Cintré. “That quite set her up again.”
“What a checkered career!” said Newman. “Are you very fond of children?” He was certain that she was, but he wished to make her say it.
“I like to talk with them,” she answered; “we can talk with them so much more seriously than with grown persons. That is great nonsense that I have been telling Blanche, but it is a great deal more serious than most of what we say in society.”
“I wish you would talk to me, then, as if I were Blanche’s age,” said Newman, laughing. “Were you happy at your ball the other night?”
“Ecstatically!”
“Now you are talking the nonsense that we talk in society,” said Newman. “I don’t believe that.”
“It was my own fault if I was not happy. The ball was very pretty, and everyone very amiable.”
“It was on your conscience,” said Newman, “that you had annoyed your mother and your brother.”