s of surprise in her baby blue
eyes. Embarrassed and amused (I am inclined sometimes to think that more
than half my life has been a mixture of these not implacable enemies), I
took the bull by the horns.

"I'm thin, and sallow, and hook-nosed, and I can't sing, and I don't
laugh in a jolly way, and I can't fly kites," said I, having the
description of her ideal in my mind. "You wouldn't like me to be your
husband, would you?"

Elsa, unlike myself, was neither embarrassed nor amused. The mild and
interested gravity of her face persisted unchanged.

"I don't know," she said meditatively.

With most of the faults that can beset one of my station, I do not plead
guilty to any excessive degree of vainglory. I was flattered that the
child hesitated.

"Then you like me rather?" I asked.

"Yes--rather." She paused, and then added: "If I married you I should be
queen, shouldn't I, Cousin Augustin?"

"Yes," I assured her.

"I should think that's rather nice, isn't it?"

"It isn't any particular fun being king," said I in a burst of
confidence.

"Isn't it?" she asked, her eyes growing rounder. "Still, I think I
should like it." Her tone was quite confident; even at that age, as I
have observed, she knew very well what she liked. For my part I
remembered so vividly my own early dreams and later awakenings that I
would not cut short her guileless visions; moreover, to generalize from
one's self is the most fatal foolishness, even while it is the most
inevitable.

During the remaining hours of my visit Elsa treated me, I must not say
with more affection, but certainly with more attention. She was
interested in me; I had become to her a source of possibilities, dim to
vision but gorgeous to imagination. I knew so well the images that
floated before a childish mind, able to gape at them, only half able to
grasp them. I had been through this stage. It is odd to reflect that I
was in an unlike but almost equally great delusion myself. I had ceased
to expect immoderate enjoyment from my position, but I had conceived an
exaggerated idea of its power and influence on the world and mankind. Of
this mistake I was then unconscious; I smiled to think that Elsa could
play at being a queen, the doll, the bolster, the dog, or whatever else
might chance to come handy acting the regal _role_ in my place. I do not
now altogether quarrel with my substitutes.

The hour of departure came. I have a vivid recollection of Cousin
Elizabeth