appeared, and seeing her in tears inquired what was the matter. “I wish—-I wish,” began the poor girl, but tears choked her utterance. “You wish that you could go to the ball,” interrupted her godmother, who was a fairy. “Indeed I do!” said Cinderella, with a sigh. “Well, then, if you will be a good girl, you shall go,” said her godmother. “Now fetch me a pumpkin from the garden,” added she. Cinderella flew to gather the finest pumpkin she could find, though she could not understand how it was to help her to go to the ball. But, her godmother having scooped it quite hollow, touched it with her wand, when it was immediately changed into a gilt coach. She then went to the mousetrap, where she found six live mice, and bidding Cinderella let them out one by one, she changed each mouse into a fine dapple-grey horse by a stroke of her wand. She next considered what she should do for a coachman, when Cinderella proposed to look for a rat in the rat-trap. “That's a good thought,” quoth her godmother, “so go and see.” Sure enough, Cinderella returned with the rat-trap, in which were three large rats. The fairy chose one who had a tremendous pair of whiskers, and forthwith changed him into a coachman with the finest moustachios ever seen. She then said: “Now go into the garden, and bring me six lizards, which you will find behind the watering-pot.” These were no sooner brought, than they were turned into six footmen, with laced liveries, who got up behind the coach just as naturally as if they had done nothing else all their lives. The fairy then said to Cinderella: “Now here are all the means for going to the ball; are you not pleased?” “But must I go in these dirty clothes?” said Cinderella, timidly. Her godmother merely touched her with her wand, and her shabby clothes were changed to a dress of gold and silver tissue, all ornamented with precious stones. She next gave her the prettiest pair of glass slippers ever seen. She now got into the carriage, after having been warned by her godmother upon no account to prolong her stay beyond midnight, as, should she remain a moment longer at the ball, her coach would again become a pumpkin, her horses mice, her footmen lizards, while her clothes would return to their former shabby condition. Cinderella promised she would not fail to leave the ball before midnight, and set off in an ecstacy of delight. The king's son, on being informed that some great princess, unknown at court, had just arrived, went to hand her out of her carriage, and brought her into the hall where the company was assembled. The moment she appeared, all conversation was hushed, the violins ceased playing, and the dancing stopped short, so great was the sensation produced by the stranger's beauty. A confused murmur of admiration fluttered through the crowd, and each was fain to exclaim “How surpassingly lovely she is!” Even the king, old as he was, could not forbear admiring her like the rest, and whispered to the queen, that she was certainly the fairest and comeliest woman he had seen for many a long day. The ladies were all busy examining her head-dress and her clothes, in order to get similar ones the very next day, if, indeed, they could meet with stuffs of such rich patterns, and find workwomen clever enough to make them up.

After leading her to the place to which her rank seemed to entitle her, the king's son requested her hand for the next dance, when she displayed so much grace as to increase the admiration her beauty had raised in the first instance. An elegant supper was next brought in, but the young prince was so taken up with gazing at the fair stranger, that he did not partake of a morsel. Cinderella went and sat by her sisters, sharing with them the oranges and citrons the prince had offered her, much to their surprise, as they did not recognise her in the least.

When Cinderella heard the clock strike three-quarters past eleven, she made a low curtsey to the whole assembly, and retired in haste. On reaching home, she found her godmother, and after thanking her for the treat she had enjoyed, she ventured to express a wish to return to the ball on the following evening, as the prince had requested her to do. She was still relating to her godmother all that had happened at court, when her two sisters knocked at the door. Cinderella went and let them in, pretending to yawn and stretch herself, and rub her eyes, and saying: “How late you are!” just as if she was woke up out of a nap, though, truth to say, she had never felt less disposed to sleep in her life. “If you had been to the ball,” said one of the sisters, “you would not have thought it late. There came the most beautiful princess ever seen, who loaded us with polite attentions, and gave us oranges and citrons.”

Cinderella could scarcely contain her delight, and inquired the name of the princess. But they replied that nobody knew her name, and that the king's son was in great trouble about her, and would give the world to know who she could be. “Is she, then, so very beautiful?” said Cinderella, smiling. “Lord! how I should like to see her! Oh, do, my Lady Javotte, lend me the yellow dress you wear every day, that I may go to the ball and have a peep at this wonderful princess.” “A likely story, indeed!” cried Javotte, tossing her head disdainfully, “that I should lend my clothes to a dirty Cinderella like you!” Cinderella expected to be refused, and was not sorry for it, as she would have been puzzled what to do, had her sister really lent her the dress she begged to have.

On the following evening, the sisters again went to the court ball, and so did Cinderella, drest even more magnificently than before. The king's son never left her side, and kept paying her the most flattering attentions. The young lady was nothing loth to listen to him; so it came to pass that she forgot her godmother's injunctions, and, indeed, lost her reckoning so completely, that, before she deemed it could be eleven o'clock, she was startled at hearing the first stroke of midnight. She rose hastily, and flew away like a startled fawn. The prince attempted to follow her, but she was too swift for him; only, as she flew she dropped one of her glass slippers, which he picked up very eagerly. Cinderella reached home quite out of breath, without either coach or footmen, and with only her shabby clothes on her back; nothing, in short, remained of her recent magnificence, save a little glass slipper, the fellow to the one she had lost. The sentinels at the palace gate were closely questioned as to whether they had not seen a princess coming out; but they answered they had seen no one except a shabbily drest girl, who appeared to be a peasant rather than a young lady.

When the two sisters returned from the ball, Cinderella asked them whether they had been well entertained; and whether the beautiful lady was there? They replied, that she was; but that she had run away as soon as midnight had struck, and so quickly as to drop one of her dainty glass slippers, which the king's son had picked up, and was looking at most fondly during the remainder of the ball; indeed, it seemed beyond a doubt that he was deeply enamoured of the beautiful creature to whom