fled as nimble as a deer. The Prince followed, but could not
overtake her. She left behind one of her glass slippers, which
the Prince took up most carefully. She got home, but quite out of
breath, and in her old clothes, having nothing left her of all
her finery but one of the little slippers, fellow to that she
dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not
seen a Prinecess go out.

They said they had seen nobody go out but a young girl, very
meanly dressed, and who had more of the air of a poor country
girl than a gentlewoman.

When the two sisters returned from the ball Cinderella asked them
if they had been well diverted and if the beautiful Princess had
been there.

They told her yes, but that she hurried away immediately when the
clock struck twelve, and with so much haste that she dropped one
of her little glass slippers, the prettiest in the world, which
the King's son had taken up; that he had done nothing but look at
her all the time at the ball, and that most certainly he was very
much in love with the beautiful person who owned the glass
slipper.

What they said was very true, for a few days after the King's son
caused it to be proclaimed, by sound of trumpet, that he would
marry her whose foot this slipper would just fit. They whom he
employed began to try it upon the Princesses, then the Duchesses
and all the Court, but in vain. It was brought to the two
sisters, who did all they possibly could to thrust their feet