The Prince had been watching for her impatiently, and the moment she entered the room he hurried forward and took her by the hand.
“Why did you leave me so suddenly?” he asked her. “I sought you everywhere and could not sleep all night for thinking of you.”
He then again led her to a place in the dance, and he would dance with no one else.
As it drew on toward midnight Cinderella became very uneasy. She tried to slip away without being seen, but the Prince followed her everywhere she went. At last she made some excuse and sent him away for a moment. Then she drew her cloak around her and sped down the stairs and out to where her coach was waiting. She sprang into it and rolled away. But half-way home she heard the castle clock begin to strike the hour. As the last stroke sounded the coach melted away from around her, and a yellow pumpkin lay at her feet; the horses changed into mice and ran away, squealing; the coachman became a rat, and the lizards made haste to hide in the crack of a wall. Cinderella, in her rags, had barely time to run back to the kitchen and take her place beside the fire before the door opened and her stepsisters swept into the room.
“This ball was even more beautiful than the other,” they cried. “And the Princess was there again, and so lovely that it dazzled the eyes to look at her. The Prince thought of no one but her.”
“Ah, if I could only see her!” sighed Cinderella.
“You the cinder-wench!” scoffed the sisters. “Why she would not even allow you in her kitchen. But come! Unfasten our dresses. To-morrow there is to be another ball, and we must get to bed and rest, so as to look our best.”
So Cinderella helped her sisters to undress, and all the while she did so they could talk of nothing but the unknown princess, of how beautiful she was, and of how much the Prince had admired her.
The next night Cinderella helped to dress her sisters and make them ready for the ball. They rolled away in their coach, and then Cinderella waited impatiently for her godmother to come. It was not long before the old fairy appeared.
“Well,” said she, “and do you wish to go to this ball also?”