Ella slept by the kitchen fire, so her stepsisters called her Cinderella. She scrubbed their floors and stitched their gowns. "There's a ball at the palace," said Griselda. "Not for you," said Maud.
On the night of the ball, Cinderella buttoned Maud's sleeves and pinned up Griselda's hair. The carriage rolled away. She sat down in the ashes, next to a pumpkin she had grown herself.
"Is that pumpkin for soup?" asked an old woman at the door. She was Cinderella's fairy godmother. Tap went her stick: the pumpkin was a golden coach. Tap: six mice were six grey horses.
Tap: the sooty apron was a gown as gold as the pumpkin, and on her feet were two glass slippers. "It all lasts until midnight," said her godmother. "Until midnight, and not one minute more."
At the palace nobody knew her. Prince Leo asked her to dance, and then he asked again. "Who is she?" said Griselda and Maud. Cinderella brought them each an orange from the Prince's table.
Bong. The clock began to strike twelve. "Until midnight!" gasped Cinderella. She ran down the long stairs so fast that one glass slipper stayed behind on a step.
On the road sat a pumpkin, six mice, and a girl in a sooty apron. But one glass slipper was still on her foot. The magic had forgotten it. She put it in her pocket and walked home.
Next morning Prince Leo went from door to door with the slipper on a cushion. Griselda squeezed. Maud pushed. Their heels hung out the back like loaves from an oven.
"May I?" asked Cinderella. Her sisters laughed. She did not try the slipper on. She put her hand in her apron pocket and set the other one down beside it.
Cinderella married the Prince. Griselda and Maud came to live at the palace too, in rooms with fireplaces of their own. That night everybody danced. The clock struck twelve. They danced until midnight, and then one minute more.
