e cakes with sugar castles and flower gardens
on the tops of them, and the charming shapes of gold and ruby-coloured
jellies. There were wonderful bonbons which even the Mayor's daughter
did not have every day; and all sorts of fruits, fresh and candied. They
had cowslip wine in green glasses, and elderberry wine in red, and
they drank each other's health. The glasses held a thimbleful each; the
Mayor's wife thought that was all the wine they ought to have. Under
each child's plate there was a pretty present and every one had a basket
of bonbons and cake to carry home.

At four o'clock the fiddlers put up their fiddles and the children went
home; fairies and shepherdesses and pages and princesses all jabbering
gleefully about the splendid time they had had.

But in a short time what consternation there was throughout the city.
When the proud and fond parents attempted to unbutton their children's
dresses, in order to prepare them for bed, not a single costume would
come off. The buttons buttoned again as fast as they were unbuttoned;
even if they pulled out a pin, in it would slip again in a twinkling;
and when a string was untied it tied itself up again into a bowknot. The
parents were dreadfully frightened. But the children were so tired out
they finally let them go to bed in their fancy costumes and thought
perhaps they would come off better in the morning. So Red Riding-hood
went to bed in her little red cloak holding fast to her basket full of
dainties for her grandmother, and Bo-Peep slept with her crook in her
hand.

The children all went to bed readily enough, they were so very
tired, even though they had to go in this strange array. All but the
fairies--they danced and pirouetted and would not be still.

"We want to swing on the blades of grass," they kept saying, "and play
hide and seek in the lily cups, and take a nap between the leaves of the
roses."

The poor charwomen and coal-heavers, whose children the fairies were for
the most part, stared at them in great distress. They did not know
what to do with these radiant, frisky little creatures into which their
Johnnys and their Pollys and Betseys were so suddenly transformed. But
the fairies went to bed quietly enough when daylight came, and were soon
fast asleep.

There was no further trouble till twelve o'clock, when all the children
woke up. Then a great wave of alarm spread over the city. Not one of the
costumes would come off then. The buttons but