At home Cinderella prepared all of the things needed to wear two of these gowns. Corsets, underskirts, metal skirt cages, pale under dresses, and her favorite thing, soft, fragile slippers. There was no way to describe her yearning to walk in a pair of perfect silk slippers. But her feet were nothing to showcase.

The ball was tomorrow night and dresses had just been found now after searching through at least ten of the land’s finest stores. Cinderella sighed. She was not pretty or delicate looking and she could not attend the ball even though she was of marrying age. Her invitation lay ripped up in Stepmother’s parlor.

After fixing dinner, cleaning the dining room and kitchen, bathing her stepmother, and tucking in Olivia and Elizabeth she was at last allowed to go to sleep. She slipped into an old patched nightgown and crawled under a scratchy blanket, on a dusty straw mattress. She watched a spider as it wove an intricate web in the corner until her lids fell over her eyes and she was fast asleep.