“Ay, to be sure!” cried Miss Charlotte; “lend my clothes to such a dirty Cinderwench as thou art!  I should be out of my mind to do so.”

Cinderella, indeed, expected such an answer and was very glad of the refusal; for she would have been sadly troubled if her sister had lent her what she jestingly asked for.  The next day the two sisters went to the ball, and so did Cinderella, but dressed more magnificently than before.  The King’s son was always by her side, and his pretty speeches to her never ceased.  These by no means annoyed the young lady.  Indeed, she quite forgot her godmother’s orders to her, so that she heard the clock begin to strike twelve when she thought it could not be more than eleven.  She then rose up and fled, as nimble as a deer.  The Prince followed, but could not overtake her.  She left behind one of her glass slippers, which the Prince took up most carefully.  She got home, but quite out of breath, without her carriage, and in her old clothes, having nothing left her of all her finery but one of the little slippers, fellow to the one she had dropped.  The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a princess go out, and they replied they had seen nobody go out but a young girl, very meanly dressed, and who had more the air of a poor country girl than of a young lady.

When the two sisters returned from the ball, Cinderella asked them if they had had a pleasant time, and if the fine lady had been there.  They told her, yes; but that she hurried away the moment it struck twelve, and with so much haste that she dropped one of her little glass slippers, the prettiest in the world, which the King’s son had taken up.  They said, further, that he had done nothing but look at her all the time, and that most certainly he was very much in love with the beautiful owner of the glass slipper.

What they said was true; for a few days after the King’s son caused it to be proclaimed, by sound of trumpet, that he would marry her whose foot this slipper would fit exactly.  They began to try it on the princesses, then on the duchesses, and then on all the ladies of the Court; but in vain.  It was brought to the two sisters, who did all they possibly could to thrust a foot into the slipper, but they could not succeed.  Cinderella, who saw this, and knew her slipper, said to them, laughing:—­

“Let me see if it will not fit me.”

Her sisters burst out a-laughing, and began to banter her.  The gentleman who was sent to try the slipper looked earnestly at Cinderella, and, finding her very handsome, said it was but just that she should try, and that he had orders to let every lady try it on.

He obliged Cinderella to sit down, and, putting the slipper to her little foot, he found it went on very easily, and fitted her as if it had been made of wax.  The astonishment of her two sisters was great, but it was still greater when Cinderella pulled out of her pocket the other slipper and put it on her foot.  Thereupon, in came her godmother, who, having touched Cinderella’s clothes with her wand, made them more magnificent than those she had worn before.