The Childrens Book of Christmas Stories | Page 7

of crimson velvet
knee-breeches, and a little swallow-tailed coat with beautiful golden
buttons. Deep lace ruffles fell over his slender white hands, and he
wore elegant knee buckles of glittering stones. He sat on a high stool
behind his counter and served his customers himself; he kept no clerk.
It did not take the children long to discover what beautiful things he
had, and how superior he was to the other costumers, and they begun to
flock to his shop immediately, from the Mayor's daughter to the poor
ragpicker's. The children were to select their own costumes; the Mayor
had stipulated that. It was to be a children's ball in every sense of the
word.
So they decided to be fairies and shepherdesses, and princesses
according to their own fancies; and this new Costumer had charming
costumes to suit them.
It was noticeable that, for the most part, the children of the rich, who
had always had everything they desired, would choose the parts of
goose-girls and peasants and such like; and the poor children jumped
eagerly at the chance of being princesses or fairies for a few hours in
their miserable lives.

When Christmas Eve came and the children flocked into the Mayor's
mansion, whether it was owing to the Costumer's art, or their own
adaptation to the characters they had chosen, it was wonderful how
lifelike their representations were. Those little fairies in their short
skirts of silken gauze, in which golden sparkles appeared as they
moved with their little funny gossamer wings, like butterflies, looked
like real fairies. It did not seem possible, when they floated around to
the music, half supported on the tips of their dainty toes, half by their
filmy purple wings, their delicate bodies swaying in time, that they
could be anything but fairies. It seemed absurd to imagine that they
were Johnny Mullens, the washerwoman's son, and Polly Flinders, the
charwoman's little girl, and so on.
The Mayor's daughter, who had chosen the character of a goose-girl,
looked so like a true one that one could hardly dream she ever was
anything else. She was, ordinarily, a slender, dainty little lady rather
tall for her age. She now looked very short and stubbed and brown, just
as if she had been accustomed to tend geese in all sorts of weather. It
was so with all the others--the Red Riding-hoods, the princesses, the
Bo-Peeps and with every one of the characters who came to the
Mayor's ball; Red Riding-hood looked round, with big, frightened eyes,
all ready to spy the wolf, and carried her little pat of butter and pot of
honey gingerly in her basket; Bo-Peep's eyes looked red with weeping
for the loss of her sheep; and the princesses swept about so grandly in
their splendid brocaded trains, and held their crowned heads so high
that people half-believed them to be true princesses.
But there never was anything like the fun at the Mayor's Christmas ball.
The fiddlers fiddled and fiddled, and the children danced and danced on
the beautiful waxed floors. The Mayor, with his family and a few grand
guests, sat on a dais covered with blue velvet at one end of the dancing
hall, and watched the sport. They were all delighted. The Mayor's
eldest daughter sat in front and clapped her little soft white hands. She
was a tall, beautiful young maiden, and wore a white dress, and a little
cap woven of blue violets on her yellow hair. Her name was Violetta.
The supper was served at midnight--and such a supper! The mountains

of pink and white ices, and the 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