and was
seen to take it out continually, and look at it affectionately, with
the air of a man very much in love; in fact, from his behaviour during
the remainder of the evening, all the court and royal family were
convinced that he had become desperately enamoured of the wearer of
the little glass slipper.

Cinderella listened in silence, turning her face to the kitchen fire,
and perhaps it was that which made her look so rosy, but nobody ever
noticed or admired her at home, so it did not signify, and next
morning she went to her weary work again just as before.

A few days after, the whole city was attracted by the sight of a
herald going round with a little glass slipper in his hand,
publishing, with a flourish of trumpets, that the king's son ordered
this to be fitted on the foot of every lady in the kingdom, and that
he wished to marry the lady whom it fitted best, or to whom it and the
fellow slipper belonged. Princesses, duchesses, countesses, and simple
gentlewomen all tried it on, but being a fairy slipper, it fitted
nobody and beside, nobody could produce its fellow slipper, which lay
all the time safely in the pocket of Cinderella's old linsey gown.

At last the herald came to the house of the two sisters, and though
they well knew neither of themselves was the beautiful lady, they made
every attempt to get their clumsy feet into the glass slipper, but in
vain.

"Let me try it on," said Cinderella from the chimney corner.

"What, you?" cried the others, bursting into shouts of laughter; but
Cinderella only smiled, and held out her hand.

Her sisters could not prevent her, since the command was that every
young maiden in the city should try on the slipper, in order that no
chance might be left untried, for the prince was nearly breaking his
heart; and his father and mother were afraid that though a prince, he
would actually die for love of the beautiful unknown lady.

So the herald bade Cinderella sit down on a three-legged stool in the
kitchen, and himself put the slipper on her pretty little foot, which
it fitted exactly; she then drew from her pocket the fellow slipper,
which she also put on, and stood up--for with the touch of the magic
shoes all her dress was changed likewise--no longer the poor despised
cinder-wench, but the beautiful lady whom the king's son loved.

Her sisters recognized her at once. Filled with astonishment, mingled
with no little alarm, they threw themselves at her feet, beg