Cinderella

Cinderella

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cinderella, by Richard Harding Davis This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Cinderella And Other Stories
Author: Richard Harding Davis
Release Date: July 16, 2005 [EBook #16310]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CINDERELLA ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration: "He looked beyond, through the dying fire, into the succeeding years."]
CINDERELLA
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1896
_Copyright, 1896,_
By Charles Scribner's Sons.

*** _The stories in this volume have appeared in Scribner's Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Weekly, and Young People; and "The Reporter who Made Himself King" also in a volume, the rest of which, however, addressed itself to younger readers._
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

CONTENTS
Page Cinderella 1 Miss Delamar's Understudy 36 The Editor's Story 76 An Assisted Emigrant 105 The Reporter who Made Himself King 119

CINDERELLA
The servants of the Hotel Salisbury, which is so called because it is situated on Broadway and conducted on the American plan by a man named Riggs, had agreed upon a date for their annual ball and volunteer concert, and had announced that it would eclipse every other annual ball in the history of the hotel. As the Hotel Salisbury had been only two years in existence, this was not an idle boast, and it had the effect of inducing many people to buy the tickets, which sold at a dollar apiece, and were good for "one gent and a lady," and entitled the bearer to a hat-check without extra charge.
In the flutter of preparation all ranks were temporarily levelled, and social barriers taken down with the mutual consent of those separated by them; the night-clerk so far unbent as to personally request the colored hall-boy Number Eight to play a banjo solo at the concert, which was to fill in the pauses between the dances, and the chambermaids timidly consulted with the lady telegraph operator and the lady in charge of the telephone, as to whether or not they intended to wear hats.
And so every employee on every floor of the hotel was working individually for the success of the ball, from the engineers in charge of the electric light plant in the cellar, to the night-watchman on the ninth story, and the elevator-boys who belonged to no floor in particular.
Miss Celestine Terrell, who was Mrs. Grahame West in private life, and young Grahame West, who played the part opposite to hers in the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera that was then in the third month of its New York run, were among the honored patrons of the Hotel Salisbury. Miss Terrell, in her utter inability to adjust the American coinage to English standards, and also in the kindness of her heart, had given too generous tips to all of the hotel waiters, and some of this money had passed into the gallery window of the Broadway Theatre, where the hotel waiters had heard her sing and seen her dance, and had failed to recognize her young husband in the Lord Chancellor's wig and black silk court dress. So they knew that she was a celebrated personage, and they urged the _ma?tre d'h?tel_ to invite her to the ball, and then persuade her to take a part in their volunteer concert.
Paul, the head-waiter, or "Pierrot," as Grahame West called him, because it was shorter, as he explained, hovered over the two young English people one night at supper, and served them lavishly with his own hands.
"Miss Terrell," said Paul, nervously,--"I beg pardon, Madam, Mrs. Grahame West, I should say,--I would like to make an invitation to you."
Celestine looked at her husband inquiringly, and bowed her head for Paul to continue.
"The employees of the Salisbury give the annual ball and concert on the sixteenth of December, and the committee have inquired and requested of me, on account of your kindness, to ask you would you be so polite as to sing a little song for us at the night of our ball?"
The head-waiter drew a long breath and straightened himself with a sense of relief at having done his part, whether the Grahame Wests did theirs or not.
As a rule, Miss Terrell did not sing in private, and had only broken this rule twice, when the inducements which led her to do so were forty pounds for each performance, and the fact that her beloved Princess of Wales was to be present. So she hesitated for an instant.
"Why, you are very good," she said, doubtfully. "Will there be any other people there,--any one not an employee, I mean?"
Paul misunderstood her and became a servant