Once upon a time, there was a girl, Ella. She was an ugly girl. Quite plain, tall, with a great deal of bulk. She took up space in an age where women should disappear or skulk in the shadows until the time came to parade in finery and find a husband. This girl’s soul was moderately good. It did not sparkle with unusual kindness but she was sweet to animals and was neighborly. She had an average intelligence. She was fond of reading but only the slim romances that belonged to her deceased mother. She avoided her father’s history and science books.
One day her father came home from a business trip. He brought with him a new wife – imperious, proud, and attractive. There were two girls. They were popular and pretty. Their eyes widened when they saw Ella. The father died a year later and Ella was robbed of her comfortable room and sent to the basement kitchen to live amongst bags of beans, split peas, and mice. She was constantly laboring over the fireplace and was nearly always smeared with ashes. Her step-sisters called her Cinderella.
The king held a ball so his son could find a wife. The king made a rule that the prince must dance, at least once, with every woman in the kingdom. On the night of the ball the step-sisters and step-mother dressed in their finest clothes. Cinderella had no dress. She had outgrown all the party clothes gifted by her father. She went to the garden and cried. A fairy appeared who looked very much like a middle-aged woman. Magic ensued. A carriage appeared. Cinderella was adorned in a dress.
“Goodness. A fine dress hasn’t made your face or body beautiful at all,” said the fairy. Cinderella lifted her dress and the fairy saw unusually pale dainty feet. “I’ll give you glass slippers.” Cinderella’s feet were remarkable to look at it.
Cinderella arrived late at the ball. When she entered everyone stared. The dress was beautiful but the girl was a fright. The prince was angry he had to dance with her. At the stroke of midnight she left and lost a slipper. An hour later the prince found the dainty shoe. He was convinced that a tiny, shiny slipper meant an extraordinarily pretty woman.
The next day he went around with the shoe and could find no maiden who could fit in the shoe. Then Cinderella offered up her dirty foot. The slipper fit perfectly. The prince recoiled in horror.
“You’re an ugly girl,” he exclaimed. He left and married a duchess a month later.
Cinderella was left to toil, talk to mice, and pine for men in the romance novels she read.
The lesson is that if you are an ugly girl even magic cannot rescue you from an unfair existence as being ugly means you possess no worth, however small it might be.
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