CINDER-
ELLA

morrow night, spare me some of your clothes. I
should like to see this princess.’ .
‘Hoity-toity! this is a fine idea!’ exclaimed the
sisters. ‘We should die of shame to be seen at a
great ball with such as you—and have it known
too that we were related.’
Cinderella expected this refusal. She was not
sorry ; she would have been sorely embarrassed if
the sisters had consented to lend her their clothes,
and take her with them.
Next evening the sisters departed for the ball,
and all happened as on the previous night. This
time Cinderella was even more splendidly dressed
than on the first night.
The king’s son was all the evening at her side,
and said to her the prettiest things imaginable.
Cinderella was so happy that the time passed
unobserved; and she forgot what her godmother
had said to her; so that she heard the first stroke
of twelve when she supposed it was only eleven
o'clock. Then she sprang from her seat and fled
as swiftly as a fawn.
The prince followed her, but could not overtake
her; however, in her flight she let fall one of her
glass slippers, and as the prince stooped to pick
it up she vanished. Cinderella arrived at home,
panting, in her soiled and patched dress, on foot,
without coach and attendance, nothing of all her
magnificence remained except the odd glass
slipper.
The prince inquired of the guards at the palace
gate if they had seen a beautiful princess pass,
and which way her coach had gone; but they
declared that no one except a scullery-maid had
passed that way; and upon looking for her coach,
it was nowhere to be seen.
When the two sisters returned from the ball,
Cinderella asked them if they had enjoyed them-
Selves, and if the beautiful lady had been there ;
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