to her. Cinderella was so happy that the hours passed by like minutes, and almost before she knew it the night slipped away. Suddenly, however, she heard the great clock in the tower chime out three-quarters past eleven, and she remembered her godmother’s warning.
She rose immediately, and making a deep curtsy of farewell, told the Prince that the time had come for her to depart. He pressed her to stay another hour, another five minutes even, but she would not, and, hastening down the stairs, jumped into the coach which was already waiting for her, and gave the word to drive away. The horses galloped like the wind, and reached the house only just in time, for just as she was entering the clock struck twelve.
Immediately the coach vanished, and nothing was to be seen but the hollow rind of a pumpkin lying on the flagstones; the coachman with the whiskers turned into a rat again, the horses became mice, and the footmen lizards. The little creatures scampered away in all directions until not a tail of them was to be seen, and Cinderella stood there at the kitchen door once again attired in her ragged clothes.
