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Next she said: “Go to the end of the garden; and there in the corner of the wall behind the watering-pot, unless I am mistaken, you will find six lizards. Bring them to me. ”

Cinderellahad no sooner brought them than her godmother changed them into six footmen, who climbed up at once behind the coach with their bedizened liveries, and clung on as though they had been doing nothing else all their lives.

The Fairy then said to Cinderella:“Hey now, child! This will do to go to the ball with, unless you are hard to please. ”

“Indeed, yes,” answered Cinderella. “But how can I go, as I am, in these horrid clothes?”

“You might have given me credit for thinking of that too!” Her godmother did but touch her with her wand, and on the instant her rags were transformed into cloth of gold and silver, all be-spangled with precious stones. She felt her hair creeping up into curls, and tiring and arranging itself in tiers, on the topmost of which a double ostrich feather grew from a diamond clasp that caught the rays of the old lady’s wand and shot them about the garden, this way and that, making the slugs and snails crawl to shelter.

“But the chief mark of a lady,” said her godmother, eying her with approval, “is to be well shod,” and so saying she pulled out a pair of glass slippers, into which Cinderellapoked her toes doubtfully, for glass is not as a rule an accommodating material for slippers. You have to be measured very carefully for it.

But these fitted to perfection: and thus arrayed from top to toe, Cinderellahad nothing more to do but kiss her godmother, thank her, and step into the coach, the six horses of which were pawing the cabbage beds impatiently.

“Good-bye, child!” said her godmother. “But of one thing I must warn you seriously. I have power to send you thus to the ball, but my power lasts only until midnight. Not an instant beyond midnight must you stay there. If you over-stay the stroke of twelve, your coach will become but a pumpkin again, your horses will change back into mice, your footmen into lizards, and your ball dress shrink to the same rags in which I found you. ”

Cinderellapromised that she would not fail to take her departure before midnight: and, with that, the coachman cracked his whip and she was driven away, beside herself with joy.

In the royal palace, and in the royal gardens, over which shone the same stars which had looked down upon Cinderella’spumpkins, the ball was at its height: with scores and scores of couples dancing on the waxed floor to the music of the violins; and under the trees, where the music throbbed in faint echoes, other scores of couples moving, passing and repassing, listening to the plash of the fountains and inhaling the sweet scent of the flowers.

Now, as the King’s son walked among his guests, word was brought to him by his Chamberlain that a grand Princess, whom nobody knew, had just arrived and desired admission.

“She will not tell her name,” said the Chamberlain; “but that she is a Princess and of very high dignity cannot be doubted. Apart from her beauty and the perfection of her address (of which your Royal Highness, perhaps, will allow me to be no mean judge), I may mention that the very jewels in her hair are worth a whole province. ”

The King’s son hastened to the gate to receive the fair stranger, handed her down from the coach, and led her through the gardens, where the guests drew apart and gazed in wonder at her loveliness. Still escorted by him she entered the ballroom, where at once a great silence fell, the dancing was broken off, the violins ceased to play—so taken, so ravished was everybody by the vision of this unknown one. Everywhere ran the murmur, “Ah! how beautiful she is!” The Kinghimself, old as he was, could not take his eyes off her, and confided to the Queenin a low voice that it was long since he had seen so adorable a creature.