Page:Edmund Dulac's picture-book for the French Red cross.djvu/115

CINDERELLA leave it. There—there was the coach waiting for her. She rushed towards it, when, lo and behold, as the last stroke of twelve died away, there was no coach at all; nothing but a hollow pumpkin by the kerb, and six mice and a heavily whiskered rat nibbling at it, to say nothing of six lizards wriggling away. And that was not all. She looked at herself in horror. She was in rags!

With the one thought to hide herself, she ran as fast as her legs would carry her in the direction of her home. She had scarcely covered half the distance when it came on to rain hard, and, before she reached her doorstep, she was drenched to the skin. Then, when she had crept to her chimney corner in the kitchen, she made a strange discovery. As you know, the coach and all that appertained to it had disappeared; her splendid attire had gone; but—how was this?—one real glass slipper still remained. The other, she remembered, she had dropped on the steps of the palace.

'Well, child?' said a clear voice from the other side of the fire-place; and Cinderella, looking up, saw her godmother standing there gazing down at her with a quizzical smile.

'The slippers!' she went on. 'Oh no; however forgetful you might have been, they could never have vanished like the other things. Don't you remember, I brought them with me? They were real. But where is the other one?'

'In my haste to get away I dropped it on the palace steps.' And Cinderella began to cry.

'There, there; never mind. Perhaps somebody with a capital S has picked it up. You were certainly very careless, but you are not unlucky—at least, not if I can help it.' And when Cinderella looked up through her tears her godmother had gone.

'Somebody with a capital S,' mused Cinderella, as she gazed into the dying fire. 'I wonder!' But just then the bell rang announcing the return of her step-sisters. Oh! they were full of it! A most beautiful princess had been to the ball, they said, and they had actually spoken with her. She was most gentle and condescending. Their faces shone with reflected glory. And she had left 75