Page:MU KPB 022 Cinderella - Arthur Rackham.pdf/59

 “It was nothing,” said Cinderella, who was just a little ashamed at having been discovered in tears. “I wanted—I wanted”

“You wanted to go to the ball—isn’t that it?”

“Yes,” said Cinderella with a sigh.

“Well, if you will be a good girl and do what I tell you, and don’t ask any questions, you shall go. Have you a pumpkin-bed in the garden?”

“Why, yes” said Cinderella wonderingly.

“Then go to it at once, and bring me the biggest pumpkin you can find. Now don’t stop to ask me why, but just do as I say, and you will discover the reason quickly enough.”

Cinderella ran into the garden at once, and soon came back with a fine pumpkin, which she gave to her godmother, wondering the while how such a thing was going to help her to go to the ball.

“Now a knife, if you please.”

Cinderella brought a knife, with which her godmother cut off the top of the pumpkin and scooped out the pulp until nothing was left but the hollow rind.

This she took outside into the courtyard and touched with her stick, when the pumpkin immediately changed into a most magnificent coach, all glass above and gilded panels below!

Now Cinderella realized that her godmother was a fairy, and if there was a more surprised and delighted girl in the whole country that night, I have yet to hear of her. She could not resist peeping inside the coach,