ERELLA AT HOME

For just a few moments let us enter that house of the lighted window,
that we may witness certain strange happenings.

We come into an immense, old-fashioned kitchen or scullery.

A candle burned on a mantel, sending its tranquil light out into the
room and creating ghostly shadows. Under the mantel, in the deepest
shadows of all, andirons and a crane seemed to be slinking back as if
they were hiding.

In the center of the room there was a rough wooden table. Over against
the wall, near the door which opened to the highway, stood a
grandfather's clock, ticking severely, as if it were dissatisfied with
the way things were going in the house. There were a number of other
doors visible, all closed as if they were saying, "This is an orderly
house, and everybody has gone to bed, of course!"

But everybody hadn't gone to bed! Over beyond the wooden table,
against the wall, there was a bed, and there was nobody in it.
Moreover, there was a figure seated at the wooden table: the figure of
a woman, who silently polished the spoons which were scattered before
her. She had already scoured certain pots and pans which were piled in
a heap near her hand.

Suddenly the strange happenings began.

A mouse appeared among the pots and pans on the table. It sat an
instant, with alert eyes and fidgety nose and whiskers, and then it
scrambled down the leg of the table and crossed the floor in the
direction of the grandfather's clock. An instant later there it was
again, climbing up the white face of the clock!

The clock ticked more severely than ever. The mouse disappeared amid
the works of the clock: and presto! The clock loudly struck one.

The mouse darted into sight again, slipping down across the face of the
clock. Then it disappeared.

The vibrations of the clock, filling the room as with a great clamor,
slowly died away.

Then there was another sound: a nervous rattling of the latch on the
door opening to the highway. The door opened rather abruptly, and
Cinderella, panting and pale, stood on the threshold.

For an instant she seemed afraid to enter; yet plainly she was also
afraid to remain standing there on the threshold. She glanced swiftly
about the room and then she entered and closed the door sharply behind
her. She stood for a moment, panting and leaning against the door.

There was something very strange about her; for although she was weary
and frightened, and clad in the shabbie