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 while she sat there in the dingy kitchen, with no one to talk to, and only her sad thoughts for occupation. A tear fell down her nose and splashed on to the hearth­ stone, and then another and another.

All of a sudden Cinderella heard a noise. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the figure of an old woman standing in the shadow on the other side of the hearth-place.

“Who are you?” asked Cinderella in a quavering voice.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the woman. “I have not come to do you any harm. You have seen me before, once upon a time, when you were even more unhappy than you are to-night. Look at me well, and see if you do not remember.”

Then the strange old woman stepped forward into the light. She was very, very old; so old that her face was a maze of lines, like a wrinkled apple. She was dressed in a very full red petticoat and a black-laced bodice, and