{"product_id":"2940013972247","title":"Christmas Stories for Children","description":"THE CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE*\u003cbr\u003eMARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN\u003cbr\u003eOn Christmas Eve the Mayor's stately mansion presented a beautiful appearance. There\u003cbr\u003ewere rows of different coloured wax candles burning in every window, and beyond them\u003cbr\u003eone could see the chandeliers of gold and crystal blazing with light. The fiddles were\u003cbr\u003esqueaking merrily, and lovely little forms flew past the windows in time to the music.\u003cbr\u003eThere were gorgeous carpets laid from the door to the street, and carriages were\u003cbr\u003econstantly arriving and fresh guests tripping over them. They were all children. The\u003cbr\u003eMayor was giving a Christmas Masquerade tonight to all the children in the city, the\u003cbr\u003epoor as well as the rich. The preparation for this ball had been making an immense\u003cbr\u003esensation for the last three months. Placards had been up in the most conspicuous points\u003cbr\u003ein the city, and all the daily newspapers had at least a column devoted to it, headed with\u003cbr\u003e\"THE MAYOR'S CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE,\" in very large letters.\u003cbr\u003eThe Mayor had promised to defray the expenses of all the poor children whose parents\u003cbr\u003ewere unable to do so, and the bills for their costumes were directed to be sent in to him.\u003cbr\u003eOf course there was great excitement among the regular costumers of the city, and they\u003cbr\u003eall resolved to vie with one another in being the most popular, and the best patronized on\u003cbr\u003ethis gala occasion. But the placards and the notices had not been out a week before a\u003cbr\u003enew Costumer appeared who cast all the others into the shade directly. He set up his\u003cbr\u003eshop on the corner of one of the principal streets, and hung up his beautiful costumes in\u003cbr\u003ethe windows. He was a little fellow, not much bigger than a boy of ten. His cheeks were\u003cbr\u003eas red as roses, and he had on a long curling wig as white as snow. He wore a suit of\u003cbr\u003ecrimson velvet knee-breeches, and a little swallow-tailed coat with beautiful golden\u003cbr\u003ebuttons. Deep lace ruffles fell over his slender white hands, and he wore elegant knee\u003cbr\u003ebuckles of glittering stones. He sat on a high stool behind his counter and served his\u003cbr\u003ecustomers himself; he kept no clerk.\u003cbr\u003eIt did not take the children long to discover what beautiful things he had, and how\u003cbr\u003esuperior he was to the other costumers, and they begun to flock to his shop immediately,\u003cbr\u003efrom the Mayor's daughter to the poor ragpicker's. The children were to select their own\u003cbr\u003ecostumes; the Mayor had stipulated that. It was to be a children's ball in every sense of\u003cbr\u003ethe word.\u003cbr\u003eSo they decided to be fairies and shepherdesses, and princesses according to their own\u003cbr\u003efancies; and this new Costumer had charming costumes to suit them.\u003cbr\u003eIt was noticeable that, for the most part, the children of the rich, who had always had\u003cbr\u003eeverything they desired, would choose the parts of goose-girls and peasants and such\u003cbr\u003elike; and the poor children jumped eagerly at the chance of being princesses or fairies\u003cbr\u003efor a few hours in their miserable lives.\u003cbr\u003eWhen Christmas Eve came and the children flocked into the Mayor's mansion, whether\u003cbr\u003eit was owing to the Costumer's art, or their own adaptation to the characters they had\u003cbr\u003echosen, it was wonderful how lifelike their representations were. Those little fairies in\u003cbr\u003etheir short skirts of silken gauze, in which golden sparkles appeared as they moved with\u003cbr\u003etheir little funny gossamer wings, like butterflies, looked like real fairies. It did not seem\u003cbr\u003epossible, when they floated around to the music, half supported on the tips of their\u003cbr\u003edainty toes, half by their filmy purple wings, their delicate bodies swaying in time, that\u003cbr\u003ethey could be anything but fairies. It seemed absurd to imagine that they were Johnny\u003cbr\u003eMullens, the washerwoman's son, and Polly Flinders, the charwoman's little girl, and so\u003cbr\u003eon.\u003cbr\u003eThe Mayor's daughter, who had chosen the character of a goose-girl, looked so like a\u003cbr\u003etrue one that one could hardly dream she ever was anything else. She was, ordinarily, a\u003cbr\u003eslender, dainty little lady rather tall for her age. She now looked very short and stubbed\u003cbr\u003eand brown, just as if she had been accustomed to tend geese in all sorts of weather. It\u003cbr\u003ewas so with all the others—the Red Riding-hoods, the princesses, the Bo-Peeps and with\u003cbr\u003eevery one of the characters who came to the Mayor's ball; Red Riding-hood looked\u003cbr\u003eround, with big, frightened eyes, all ready to spy the wolf, and carried her little pat of\u003cbr\u003ebutter and pot of honey gingerly in her basket; Bo-Peep's eyes looked red with weeping\u003cbr\u003efor the loss of her sheep; and the princesses swept about so grandly in their splendid\u003cbr\u003ebrocaded trains, and held their crowned heads so high that people half-believed them to\u003cbr\u003ebe true princesses.\u003cbr\u003eBut there never was anything like the fun at the Mayor's Christmas ball. The fiddlers\u003cbr\u003efiddled and fiddled, and the children danced and danced on the beautiful waxed floors.\u003cbr\u003eThe Mayor, with hi","brand":"Tea Time eBooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079814758640,"sku":"2940013972247","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013972247_p0.jpg?v=1763598217","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013972247","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}