The Glass Slipper

illusions of chihlhood ! Now we are told that the "glass slipper" in "Cinderella," of which f rom our youth upward we never questioned the authenticity, though well aware that no one who was not nprotegee of f airiea wouM tliink of dancing in such an article, was not part of the original story, but has been due to a misunderstanding of a word used in the French versión of the tale. The slipper in question was originally a slipper trimmed with a particular kind of rare fur, called in French vair- the fur of a crcature of the weasel kind. But this fur not being known to ordinary French storytellers, they spoke of a pantoufte de mrre-& glass slipper- by a sort of unconscious pun. Certainly the new reading is far more creditable to the sagacity of Cinderella's godmother, as a purveyor of comf ortable cloíhes ; f or whatever magie power the glass s! inpers might have had of surviving a dance, it is impossible tliat they could have bet n comfortable to the feet, and must have resulted in all probability in serious corns.