y to the ball, because the King's son had desired her.

As she was eagerly telling her godmother whatever had passed at the
ball, her two sisters knocked at the door, which Cinderella ran and
opened.

"How long you have stayed!" cried she, gaping, rubbing her eyes and
stretching herself as if she had been just waked out of her sleep; she
had not, however, any manner of inclination to sleep since they went
from home.

"If thou hadst been at the ball," says one of her sisters, "thou
wouldst not have been tired with it. There came thither the finest
princess, the most beautiful ever seen with mortal eyes; she showed us
a thousand civilities, and gave us oranges and citrons."

Cinderella seemed very indifferent in the matter. She did ask them the
name of that princess; but they told her they did not know it, and that
the King's son was very uneasy on her account and would give all the
world to know who she was. At this Cinderella, smiling, replied:

"She must, then, be very beautiful indeed; how happy you have been!
Could not I see her? Ah! dear Miss Charlotte, do lend me your yellow
suit of clothes which you wear every day."

"Ay, to be sure!" cried Miss Charlotte; "lend my clothes to such a
dirty Cinderwench as thou art! I should be a fool."

Cinderella, indeed, expected well such an answer, and was very glad of
the refusal; for she would have been sadly put to it if her sister had
lent her what she asked for jestingly.

The next day the two sisters were at the ball, and so was Cinderella,
but dressed more magnificently than before. The King's son was always
by her, and never ceased his compliments and kind speeches to her. All
this was so far from being tiresome that she quite forgot what her
godmother had recommended to her; so that she, at last, counted the
clock striking twelve when she took it to be no 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, and in her nasty old clothes, having nothing left her of all
her finery but one of the little slippers, fellow to that she dropped.

The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a
princess go out. To this they replied that they had seen nobody go out
but a young girl, very meanly dressed, and who had more the air of a
poor country wench than a gentlewoman.