Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/87

Cinderella caught Cinderella's eye and caused her to look up.

'Good evening, child,' said the visitor in a sharp clear voice, at the same time nodding kindly across the firelight. 'You seem to be in trouble. What is the matter?

'I wish,' sobbed Cinderella. 'I wish,' she began again, and again she choked. This was all she could say for weeping.

'You wish, dear, that you could go to the ball; is it not so?'

'Ah, yes!' said Cinderella with a sigh.

'Well, then,' said the visitor, 'be a good girl, dry your tears, and I think it can be managed. I am your godmother, you must know, and in younger days your mother and I were very dear friends.' She omitted, perhaps purposely, to add that she was a Fairy; but Cinderella was soon to discover this too. 'Do you happen to have any pumpkins in the garden?' her godmother asked.

Cinderella thought this an odd question. She could not imagine what pumpkins had to do with going to a ball. But she answered that there were plenty in the garden—a whole bed of them in fact. 55