Here was fresh work for poor Cinderella. She must starch their ruffles and iron their linen. All day long they talked of nothing but their fine clothes.
“I shall wear my red velvet dress,” said the elder, “and trim it with my point lace.”
“And I,” said the younger sister, “shall wear a silk gown, but I shall wear over it a gold brocade, and I shall put on my diamonds. You have nothing so fine.”
Then they began to quarrel over their clothes, and Cinderella tried to make peace between them. She helped them about their dresses, and offered to arrange their hair on the night of the ball.
While she was thus busy, the sisters said to her:—
“And pray, Cinderella, would you like to go to the ball?”
“Nay,” said the poor girl; “you are mocking me. It is not for such as I to go to balls.”
“True enough,” they said. “Folks would laugh to see a cinder-maid at a court ball.”
Any one else would have dressed their hair ill to spite them for their rudeness. But Cinderella was good-natured, and only took more pains to make them look well.
The two sisters scarcely ate a morsel for two days before the ball. They wished to look thin and graceful. They lost their tempers over and over, and they spent most of the time before their tall glasses. There they turned and turned to see how they looked behind, and how their long trains hung.