Page:History of Cinderella, or, The little glass slipper (1).pdf/13

 side, and said the most obliging things to her imaginable.

The charming young creature was far from being tired of all the agreeable things she met with: on the contrary, she was so delighted with them, that she entirely forgot the charge her godmother had given her.

Cinderella at last heard the striking of a clock, and counted one, two, three, on till she came to twelve, though she had thought that it could be but eleven at most. She got up and flew as nimbly as a deer out of the ball-room.

The prince tried to overtake her; but Cinderella’s fright made her run the faster. However, in her great hurry, she dropped one of the little glass slippers from her foot, which the prince stooped down and picked up, and took the greatest care of it possible.

Cinderella got home tired and out of breath, in her dirty old clothes, without either coach or footman, and having nothing left of her magnificence but the fellow of the glass slipper which she had dropped.

In the meanwhile, the prince had enquired of all his guards at the palace gates, if they had not seen a magnificent princess pass out, and which way she went? The guards replied, that no princess had passed the gates;