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Cinderella 6 -
Second Night at the Ball
On reaching home, Cinderella found her godmother; and after thanking
her for the treat she had enjoyed, she ventured to express a wish
to return to the ball on the following evening, as the prince had
requested her to do.
Cinderella
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She was still relating to her godmother all that had happened at
court, when her two sisters knocked at the door. Cinderella went
and let them in, pretending to yawn and stretch herself, and rub
her eyes, and saying,
"How late you are!" just as if she was waked
up out of a nap, though, truth to say, she had never felt less
disposed to sleep in her life.
"If you had been to the ball," said
one of the sisters, "you would not have thought it late. There came
the most beautiful princess ever seen, who loaded us with polite
attentions, and gave us oranges and citrons."
Cinderella could scarcely contain her delight, and inquired the
name of the princess. But they replied that nobody knew her name,
and that the king's son was in great trouble about her, and would
give the world to know who she could be.
"Is she, then, so very
beautiful?" said Cinderella, smiling. "Oh, my! how I should like to
see her! Oh, do, my Lady, lend me the yellow dress you wear
every day, that I may go to the ball and have a peep at this
wonderful princess."
"A likely story, indeed!" cried her sister,
tossing her head disdainfully, "that I should lend my clothes to a
dirty Cinderella like you!"
Cinderella expected to be refused, and was not sorry for it, as
she would have been puzzled what to do, had her sister really lent
her the dress she begged to have.
On the following evening the sisters again went to the court
ball, and so did Cinderella, dressed even more magnificently than
before. The king's son never left her side, and kept paying her the
most flattering attentions. The young lady was nothing loth to
listen to him; so it came to pass that she forgot her godmother's
injunctions, and, indeed, lost her reckoning so completely, that
before she deemed it could be eleven o'clock, she was startled at
hearing the first stroke of midnight.
She rose hastily, and flew
away like a startled fawn. The prince attempted to follow her, but
she was too swift for him; only, as she flew she dropped one of her
glass slippers, which he picked up very eagerly. Cinderella reached
home quite out of breath, without either coach or footmen, and with
only her shabby clothes on her back; nothing, in short, remained of
her recent magnificence, save a little glass slipper, the fellow to
the one she had lost.
The sentinels at the palace gate were closely questioned as to
whether they had not seen a princess coming out; but they answered
they had seen no one except a shabbily dressed girl, who appeared
to be a peasant rather than a young lady.
On this second night, as you have taken notice, dazzled by
worldly show and the pleasing flattery of her royal lover,
Cinderella over-stays her time, and is compelled to make her way
back to her father's house on foot and in rags—an everlasting
lesson to all the pretty little Cinderellas in the world to keep
their word, and to act in good faith by such as befriend them.
Never mind—her heart is in the right place—she is a
charming good creature; and although virtue goes home in rags, it
will leave some token behind—some foot-print by which it can
be known and traced wherever it has once walked. We shall hear from
that little lost glass slipper again!
Next: 7 - Cinderella's Glass
Slipper
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