FOR THE CHILDREN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16202, 12 April 1916, Page 10

FOR THE CHILDREN.

A LITTLE CINDERELLA.

Her name • was Jemima—a title which the aunts with whom she lived utterjy refused to shorten into Judy—and outwardly, with her heavy drab frocks, straight hair and plain, pale face, she suited it as well as the grey, uneventful life she led, shut up in a gloomy little, stucco-covered villa, with two prim aunts and one cross servant; and the sad thing was that both herself and her life were so widely different from all sfie aspired to and longed for.

For she was an intensely imaginative little being, and in the daydreams which were her inner life she lived as quite a different person—a scut of fairy-princes, i moving in a. world of the most wonderful loveliness and adventure; and sometimes the adventures would bscome so real to her that she" would almost forget they were not true, until Aunt Sarah's severe voice called her back to earth, and the fact that sho was cmly dull Jemima Browu,. with dates to learn and the dusting to do. One real-life delight she had to solace her, beside her dreams, and that was her friendship with little Mavis Desmond, a little girl who lived in a big house whois garden was separated from Aunt Sarah's only by the low wall. Pretty, putted Mavis live:! a life the opposite of Judy's— it was so full of fun and excitement that she. seldom found time to see much of her quiet nextdoor neighbour. One morning, as Judy was patiently weeding the garden-path at Aunt Ellen's orders, Mavis's fluffy head feuadenly appeared above the wall. "Hullo, you busv thing!" sho called brightly. "I say, it's my birthday on Saturday; will you como to my party.' It'll be such fun. We shall have dancing and fireworks, and illuminate the garden with Chinese lanterns and—" "Mavis," Judy interrupted with breathless solemnity and clasped hands, I»i run in now and ask if 1 may come; t simply can't bear the suspense of not knowing!" She could not understand way Mavis shrieked with laughter; to her excitable mind, the matter seemed of suet supreme, vital importance-—her very first party! She hardly dared ask leave for fear of refusal, but, to her delight, not, only was permission granted, but it was settle'! that, as her aunts would be out that evening, she might spend the night with Mavis; and until the Saturday Judy lived in a whirl of blissful anticipation, fancying that the party would open for her, as for Cinderella, the way into fairyland. ' But, alas! " the best-laid plans o' mice and men gang aft ogley." The disillusionment began at ber looking-glass, for too fatigue of excitement had made her pallid and heavy-eyed, while her fussy, badlymade frock, of crudest pink, completed the ruin; not so ought Cinderella to enter tho ballroom ! • - ' , Then when she found herself in the glittering room full of strangers, an awful shyness seized her, and she crept into a corner and sat there, feeling out of it all, as the dancing began. The only partner who fell to her lot ■was one small, unwilling schoolboy named Stubbs, who dragged J .t twice round the room in deadly silence and a series of bumpings, and then left her in her chair, where sue remained till the dancing was over. She got no supper, for Master Stubbs, | told by Mavis to " take her in," shirked ! that duty; and even the fireworks sho | hardly Saw, being too timid to press near I the window.

Poor little Cinderella! Long after Mavis was happily asleep, Judy lay torturing herself over the contrast between the dream and the actuality, her real and ideal self. She looked enviously over at pretty Mavis, whom she could hardly sea for .a blur of tears— sho blinked sway, but a haze still remaned, while it soemed to her that the ram felt stuSy, and had an odd smoky smell. With a beating heart, and alert senses, she started up, and, straining her eyos through the odd mistiness, saw what hail happened. The fiamo of the night-light, left in a dangerous position, had caught the thick curtains, and though these being woollen would only smoulder, yet if they should ignite the muslin curtains—at that thought Judy leapt out of bed, and hardly had her bare feet touched the floor than there was a blaze of light, and the this white curtain burst into flags'.

• Judy hardly knew how it was that ska did not scream at that moment, but she. was checked by a feeling that Mavis, still sleeping, must be screened not only from dariger, but from the shock of knowing its presence; and as she fought with the flames, flinging water on the curtains, tearing them down and crushing out the fire with her hands, she tried to work silently, that Mavis might not waken till all was over. In a few . minutes the danger was past. Alone, unaided, Judy had conquered; but as she paused, gasping, triumphant, and safe, she felt a burning pain in her blistered hands, the room seemed to sway round her, and the poor little fire-warden slipped down among the charred spoils of her victory in a dead faint; arid there, awakened at last by tho sound of her fall, Mavis found her. It was a white and shiky Judy, with bandaepd hands, who went home to her aunt in the dull little villa next day; [but she was ineffably happy, for she carried with her a memory, not of that disappointing, humiliating party, but of how, that morn lag, the Desmond household had pressed round her, petting and praising, and congratulating her— Mrs, Desmond had thanked her for saving .oavis'B life, while Mavis herself clung to her, and Colonel Desmond had called hgr "little heroine." ."i pt-gfc'tfiings, too, she bore away—pro•muesfhat seemed too good to be true; an irivitat'on to spend all the 'ong lovely summer holidays with the Desmond? in Scotland, and an assurance that Mrs. Desmond would try to persuade her aunts to let her go to school with Mavis, " I Shan't have to pretend a bit to-night," Judy told herself that evening, after she bad »id "good-night"—receiving one of jmnt Garah's rare kitses, and a tremulous whisper from Aunt Ellen of "you pood brave child!"-"for I couldn't possibly • mike believe about anything, nicer thi , w&t has. really happened.". . .