Page:Mother goose's fairy tales (2).pdf/15

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Fairy Tales.
15

Miſs Charlotte, "lend my clothes to ſuch a dirty Cinder breech as thou art: who's the fool then?" Cinderilla indeed expected ſome ſuch 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 jeſtlingly.

The next day the two ſiſters were at the ball, and ſo was Cinderilla, but dreſſed more magnificently than before. The king's ſon was always by her and never ceaſed his compliments and amorous ſpeeches to her; to whom all this was ſo far from being tireſome, that ſhe quitc forgot what her godmother had recommended to her, ſo 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 her one of her glaſs ſlippers, which the prince took up moſt carefully. She got home, but quite out of breath, without coach or foot man, and in the naſty old clothes, having nothing left 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 ſeen a princeſs go out? Who ſaid they had ſeen no body go out? but a young girl, very meanly dreſſed, who had more the air of a poor country wench, than a gentlewoman.

When the two ſiſters returned from the ball, Cinderilla asked them, If they had been well diverted; and if the fine lady had been there? They told her, Yes, but that ſhe hurried away immediately when the clock ſtruck twelve, and with ſo much haſte that ſhe dropped one of her little glaſs ſlippers, the prettieſt in the world, and which king's ſon had taken up: that he had done nothing but looked at her all the time of the ball, and that moſt certainly he was very much in love with the beautiful perſon that owed the little ſlipper.