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Cinderella's two sisters were much older and plainer than herself, and their mother had almost given up hope about them, but she used to drag Cinderella to balls and dances night after night, taking care that only the right sort of person was introduced to her.
And now gentlemen, who heretofore have shown no more of the jockey than Cinderella's feet in the early part of the pantomime disclose of her ball attire, suddenly cast off the pea-jackets and bearskin wraps, and shawls and overcoats of winter, and shine forth in all the silken flutter of summer heat. We know of no more humiliating sight than misshapen gentlemen playing at jockeys.
They were highly delighted with the invitation, and wonderfully busy in choosing the gowns, petticoats, and head-dresses which might best become them. This made Cinderella's lot still harder, for it was she who ironed her sisters' linen and plaited their ruffles. They talked all day long of nothing but how they should be dressed.
Cinderella at last heard the striking of a clock, and counted one, two, three, on till she came to twelve, though she thought that it could be but eleven at most. She got up and flew as nimbly as a deer out of the ball-room. The prince tried to overtake her; but poor Cinderella's fright made her run the faster.
But soon enough their scorn was turned to glee and praises; for out of Cinderella's parcel such fine sweetmeats fell on to the heap as never another one had brought with her, and among them was a little phial of attar of roses from the Levant.
Truly it is but a matter of bengal lights, blank cartridges, and fire-crackers, though for the matter of that, Cinderella's coach was but a pumpkin, yet the effect was none the less real.
The wonder to me is that some of those angels didn't get tarred and feathered. I am doubtful whether even Cinderella's luck was quite as satisfying as we are led to believe. After the carpetless kitchen and the black beetles, how beautiful the palace must have seemed for the first year, perhaps for the first two.
"I don't need to spend my hard-earned dollars on a party dress, as it happens," she said. "I can save all my pennies for the hire of my typewriter, which is going to lead me from the Hands some day along the road to fortune. I've got the most gorgeous gown you can possibly imagine. I don't believe Cinderella's godmother could give her anything better. There's only one trouble.
But Cinderella's kitchen days were fast drawing to an end, even as she, a pale slip of a girl, was budding into womanhood. One evening Mrs. Gann and the Misses McCarty had the honour of entertaining Mr. Swigby at tea, and that gentleman, in return for the courtesy shown him by Mrs.
So the housekeeper had to scream at both sides, and I was tired when we got back, and did want to rush out of doors; but I had to wait, and then walk between Lady Farrington and Aunt Maria up and down the path in the sun till lunch at one o'clock; and after that we went for a drive in the barouche, with the fattest white horses you ever saw, and a coachman just like Cinderella's one that had been a rat.
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