sleep?" So she made a contemptuous grimace, and sat herself down to wait. Soon afterwards she went out and found the tray at the door, and took it and went to her house. When her mother saw her she said to her—"What hast thou got on thy forehead, Maria?" They brought her a looking-glass, and she saw that she had a turkey's wattle on it. The mother wished to pull it off, but the more she pulled at it the bigger and uglier it became; until at last, not being able to get it off, they tied a silk handkerchief round her forehead.
One day there was a ball at court, so Maria the cinder-maiden wishing to see it, she brought out her wand of virtue, and asked of it fine clothes, coaches and servants, and everything necessary so as to go there like a great lady. Truly she had straightway beautiful dresses, and everything else that she wished, and if comely was she before much more beautiful did she become. She went to the ball at an hour when every one else in the house was asleep, and reached the court with so much stir that the prince came forth to welcome her. The star she had on her forehead lit up the whole ball-room, and the prince was so taken up with her that he danced with no one else the whole night. But when the time came for leaving, she went outside and ran to mount into her coach. The prince was following her, but she went in such haste that one of her glass slippers fell off. Nevertheless she did not stay to pick it up, but went away at such speed that the prince could not manage to catch her up; but he picked up the slipper and kept it.
The next day the prince told his servants to go all over the city with the slipper searching for its owner, and when they should find her to take her to him, because he intended to marry her. They went from house to house, but found no one that it would fit. The old woman who had heard that the prince's folk would soon reach her house, told her daughter to bind up her feet in very tight bandages, in order to make them small, and so that by that means she might manage to marry the prince. And that they might not see Maria with the star on her forehead, she hid her underneath the kneading-trough. The old woman's daughter had a little she-dog, and when the prince's folk arrived (for by that time they had gone over all the
