A MODERN CINDERELLA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 215, 18 July 1879, Page 2

A MODERN CINDERELLA.

An English paper says:—Visitors to Naples during the past season must frequently have noticed on the Via Toledoone of the finest and most frequented streets—an old woman, bent under the weight of years, clad in wretched mourning, creeping past the line of shops like a moving bas-relief, and something halting at a corner. She wore a tattered bonnet on her head, a thick black veil over her features, and a pair of ragged gloves on her fingers, She never spoke, she never put out her hand for charity, but took with a kind of growl whatever small coin the passengers might vouchsafe her. That ■« old woman's gains were 20 francs per I diem; but who was she! No one could tell, and she never answered questions. She seemed a spectre in the throng of Vanity Pair—an uncomfortable intruder * whom the butterflys of fashion were only too glad to pay and get rid of. The other dry a couple of municipal guards laid hands on her, and bundling her into a cab, took her off to the Mendicants' House. One of the female attendants stripped her, when suddenly, from the filthy, fetid envelope of rags, emerged, Cin-derella-liko, a lusty young woman, considerably on this side of 30, fresh-colored, fat, and preposessing. Her make-up was a marvel of effect. Her curved spine was " arranged" with a cord which passed round her neck, and was fastened at the knee. Her hump was manufactured from a ball of rags; her wrinkled and dirty white face was managed with imitation parchment, On inquiry it was found that

this young woman was of good family, and that the gains she so cloverly earned were brought home regularly to her parents, who kept a night-house, where scenes of the most unhallowed revelry were kept up till all hours of the morning.