Read "A Real Cinderella" by Nina Rhoades online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was still very early the next morning when Gretel awoke; a robin was singing on a tree just outside her window, but everything else was still. For the first few bewildered moments she could not remember where she was, or what had happened, and lay wondering idly why her head ached, and her eyes felt so stiff and swollen. Then it all came back with a rush; the music, Barbara's story, and those dreadful words of her brother's. Afterwards the long hours she had lain awake, alone in the darkness, trying to make up her mind what she ought to do. She had cried herself to sleep at last, having finally decided upon the course of action, which it seemed to the poor foolish little girl, was the right one to take.
"I've got to tell them; I've got to; I've got to," she had told herself resolutely. "I couldn't go on living here, letting them love me, and be good to me, and not tell them I was a dishonest person. Of course they won't ever love me any more when they know, but I can't help that. Percy will be so ashamed to have a dishonest girl for a sister, and Barbara won't want to ever see me again."