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.
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