Cinderella opened it. “How long you have stayed!” she said, yawning, rubbing her eyes, and stretching herself as if she had just been awakened. (She had not, however, had any great desire for sleep since they left her.)
“If you had been at the ball,” said one of her sisters, “you would not have been sleepy or bored. There came thither the most beautiful Princess, the very loveliest ever seen; she paid us a thousand attentions, and gave us oranges and citrons.”
Cinderella asked the name of this Princess, but they replied that no one knew it; that the King’s son was very much disturbed by this, and would give anything in the world to know who she was.
Cinderella smiled and said: “How very beautiful she must be! How fortunate you [[37]]are! Could I not see her? Ah, dear Miss Charlotte, do lend me the yellow gown that you wear every day!”
“Indeed!” said Charlotte, “I should think so! Lend my dress to a dirty cinder-wench like you! I must be out of my mind indeed if I would do that.”
Cinderella expected this refusal and was very glad of it, for she would have been greatly embarrassed if her sister had been willing to lend her the gown.
The next day the two sisters went to the ball, and so did Cinderella, but dressed much more magnificently than before. The King’s son was always by her side, and made all manner of pretty speeches to her. The young lady was far from being wearied by them, and completely forgot her godmother’s commands, so that she heard the clock begin to strike twelve when she had no idea that it was even eleven o’clock yet. She rose at once, and fled as nimbly as a deer. The Prince followed, but could not overtake her; but she dropped one of her [[38]]glass slippers, which he picked up very carefully.
Cinderella reached home quite out of breath, without either coach or footmen, and in her old clothes, having nothing left of all her finery but one of her little glass slippers, the mate of the one which she had dropped. The guards at the palace gates were questioned as to whether they had not seen a princess go out, and they replied that they had seen no one go out but a little ragged [[39]]girl who looked more like a peasant than a princess.
When her two sisters returned from the ball Cinderella asked them if they had had a good time, and if the beautiful lady was there. They told her Yes, but that she had hurried away as the clock struck twelve, and in such great haste that she had dropped one of her little glass slippers, the prettiest in the world. They told, too, how the Prince had picked it up, and how he had done nothing but look at it all the rest of the evening, and agreed that he was undoubtedly very much in love with the beautiful owner of the little slipper.