eads, which they
were very willing she should do. As she was doing this they said to her:

"Cinderella, would you not be glad to go to the ball?"

"Alas!" said she, "you only jeer me. It is not for such as I am to go
thither."

"Thou art in the right of it," replied they. "It would make the people
laugh to see a cinder wench at a ball."

Any one but Cinderella would have dressed their heads awry, but she was
very good and dressed them perfectly well. They were almost two days
without eating, so much they were transported with joy. They broke above
a dozen of laces in trying to be laced up close, that they might have a
fine, slender shape, and they were continually at their looking-glass.
At last the happy day came. They went to Court, and Cinderella followed
them with her eyes as long as she could, and when she had lost sight of
them she fell a-crying.

Her Godmother, who saw her all in tears, asked her what was the matter.

"I wish I could--I wish I could--"

She was not able to speak the rest being interrupted by her tears and
sobbing.

This Godmother of hers, who was a fairy, said to her: "Thou wishest thou
could'st go to the ball. Is it not so?"

"Y--es," cried Cinderella, with a great sigh.

"Well," said her Godmother, "be but a good girl, and I will contrive
that thou shalt go." Then she took her into her chamber and said to her:
"Run into the garden and bring me a pumpkin."

Cinderella went immediately to gather the finest she could get and
brought it to her Godmother, not being able to imagine how this pumpkin
could make her go to the ball. Her Godmother scooped out all the inside
of it, having left nothing but the rind; which done, she struck it with
her wand, and the pumpkin was instantly turned into a fine coach, gilded
all over with gold.

She then went to look into her mousetrap, where she found six mice all
alive, and ordered Cinderella to lift up a little the trapdoor, when,
giving each mouse as it went out a little tap with her wand, the mouse
was that moment turned into a fine horse, which altogether made a very
fine set of six horses of a beautiful mouse-colored dapple-gray. Being
at a loss for a coachman, Cinderella said:

"I will go and see if there is never a rat in the rattrap--we may make a
coachman of him."

"Thou art in the right," replied her Godmother. "Go and look."

Cinderella brought the trap to her, and in it there were three huge
rats. The fairy made choice of one of th