“Alas!” said she, “you only jeer me; it is not for such as I am to go
thither.”
“Thou art in the right of it,” replied they; “it would make the people
laugh to see a Cinderwench at a ball.”
Anyone but Cinderella would have dressed their heads awry, but she was
very good, and dressed them perfectly well They were almost two days
without eating, so much were they transported with joy. They broke above
a dozen laces in trying to be laced up close, that they might have a
fine slender shape, and they were continually at their looking-glass.
At last the happy day came; they went to Court, and Cinderella followed
them with her eyes as long as she could, and when she had lost sight of
them, she fell a-crying.
Her godmother, who saw her all in tears, asked her what was the matter.
“I wish I could--I wish I could--“; she was not able to speak the rest,
being interrupted by her tears and sobbing.
This godmother of hers, who was a fairy, said to her, “Thou wishest thou
couldst go to the ball; is it not so?”
“Y--es,” cried Cinderella, with a great sigh.
“Well,” said her godmother, “be but a good girl, and I will contrive
that thou shalt go.” Then she took her into her chamber, and said to
her, “Run into the garden, and bring me a pumpkin.”
Cinderella went immediately to gather the finest she could get, and
brought it to her godmother, not being able to imagine how this pumpkin
could make her go to the ball. Her godmother scooped out all the inside
of it, having left nothing but the rind; which done, she struck it with
her wand, and the pumpkin was instantly turned into a fine coach, gilded
all over with gold.
She then went to look into her mouse-trap, where she found six mice, all
alive, and ordered Cinderella to lift up a little the trapdoor, when,
giving each mouse, as it went out, a little tap with her wand, the mouse
was that moment turned into a fine horse, which altogether made a very
fine set of six horses of a beautiful mouse-colored dapple-gray. Being
at a loss for a coachman,
“I will go and see,” says Cinderella, “if there is never a rat in the
rat-trap--we may make a coachman of him.”
“Thou art in the right,” replied her godmother; “go and look.”
Cinderella brought the trap to her, and in it there were three huge
rats. The fairy made choice of one of the three which had the largest
beard, and, having touched him with her wand, he was turned into a fat,
jolly coachman, who had the smartest whiskers eyes ever beheld. After
that, she said to her:
“Go again into the garden, and you will find six lizards behind the
watering-pot, bring them to me.”
She had no sooner done so but her godmother turned them into six
footmen, who skipped up immediately behind the coach, with their
liveries all bedaubed with gold and silver, and clung as close behind
each other as if they had done nothing else their whole lives. The Fairy
then said to Cinderella:
“Well, you see here an equipage fit to go to the ball with; are you not
pleased with it?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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