“We do not know,” they said. “Even the King’s son is curious to learn who she is.”
Cinderella smiled and said to the elder sister: “Was she so beautiful then! How happy you are!”
The next night the sisters went to the ball. Cinderella went, too, even more magnificently attired than the first time. The King’s son was constantly by her side, and never ceased whispering sweet things. Cinderella was not at all weary, and she forgot what her Godmother had told her; so that when she heard the first stroke of midnight, she could not believe that it was more than eleven o’clock.
She sprang up, and fled as swiftly as a deer. The Prince followed her, but could not catch her. She lost one of her glass slippers, which he tenderly picked up.
Cinderella reached home breathless, without coach or footmen, and clad in rags. Nothing remained of all her splendour but one little glass slipper, for she had dropped the other.
The Prince’s attendants asked the palace guards if they had seen a Princess pass by. They said that they had seen no one except a poorly dressed girl, who looked more like a peasant than a Princess.
When her sisters returned, Cinderella asked if they had had a good time again, and if the lovely Princess had been present. They said yes, but that she had fled as soon as twelve o’clock had sounded, and that she had dropped one of her little glass slippers--it was the prettiest thing!--and that the Prince had picked it up. And that he had done nothing but look at it for the rest of the night! Assuredly he must be very much in love with the Princess to whom it belonged!
And they were right. A few days after this the King’s son sent a herald who announced, by sound of a trumpet, that the Prince would marry any lady whom the glass slipper fitted.
Then commenced a great trying-on by Princesses and Duchesses and all the ladies of the Court--but it was of no use. At last they brought the glass slipper to the two sisters, who did their best to get their feet into it, but they could not do so.
Cinderella, who was looking on and recognized her slipper, said smilingly: “Let me see if it will fit me.”
Her sisters began to laugh scornfully and to ridicule her; but the attendant who held the slipper, looking attentively at Cinderella, saw that she was very beautiful, and said that she had a right to do so, for he had been ordered to try the slipper on every girl in the Kingdom.