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, dressed 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.

[Illustration:  Cinderella dancing with the prince is admired for her gracefulness.  The clock strikes twelve:  She having forgot her god-mother’s instructions, is alarmed, Flies out of the ball-room—­her gorgeous apparel is changed into the dress of A Cinder-wench, and her splendid equipage into A pumpkin, rats, mice and lizards.]

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 dressed girl, who appeared to be a peasant rather than a young lady.

On this second night, as you have taken notice, dazzled by worldly show and the pleasing flattery of her royal lover, Cinderella over-stays her time, and is compelled to make her way back to her father’s house on foot and in rags—­an everlasting lesson to all the pretty little Cinderellas in the world to keep their word, and to act in good faith by such as befriend them.  Never mind—­her heart is in the right place—­she is a charming good creature; and although virtue goes home in rags, it will leave some token behind—­some foot-print by which it can be known and traced wherever it has once walked.  We shall hear from that little lost glass slipper again!

[Illustration:  Cinderella returned shabbily dressed.]

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 enamored of the beautiful creature to whom it belonged.