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CHAPTER VI
The Invitation
Things went on in this way for more than two years, and during all that time Cinderella seldom spoke to her father. There was no doubt that he knew how his little daughter was being treated, but he gave no sign that he knew, or that he tried to prevent it. The fact is, he was so much afraid of his new wife that he dared not say a word. He shut himself up in his library more and more, and Cinderella heard from her step sisters that he was engaged in writing a book.
“It’s all about the Greeks,” said Euphronia, “nasty unfashionable creatures who lived in tubs and went about with lanterns looking for honest people.” I think she was thinking of the story of Diogenes, which Cinderella had told her one day when the name came up in the course of her reading from a news-sheet; but can you understand such ignorance!
Once the Baron came out of his room while Cinderella was brushing the stairs. He put his hand on her head as he used to do in the old days, and looked as if he were going to say something, but the sound of his wife’s footsteps on the stairs startled him, and he scuttled back to his room like a frightened rabbit.
Cinderella was now sixteen years of age, and in spite of her hard life had grown to be a very beautiful girl. Her pretty clothes had long ago worn out, or become too
