"We consent!" cried all the people; but the Mayor, though he was
so generous, was a proud man. "I will not consent to the second
condition," he cried angrily.

"Very well," replied the Costumer, picking some more cherries, "then
your youngest daughter tends geese the rest of her life, that's all!"

The Mayor was in great distress; but the thought of his youngest
daughter being a goose-girl all her life was too much for him. He gave
in at last.

"Now go home, and take the costumes off your children," said the
Costumer, "and leave me in peace to eat cherries!"

Then the people hastened back to the city and found, to their great
delight, that the costumes would come off. The pins staid out, the
buttons staid unbuttoned, and the strings staid untied. The children
were dressed in their own proper clothes and were their own proper
selves once more. The shepherdesses and the chimney-sweeps came
home, and were washed and dressed in silks and velvets, and went to
embroidering and playing lawn-tennis. And the princesses and the
fairies put on their own suitable dresses, and went about their useful
employments. There was great rejoicing in every home. Violetta thought
she had never been so happy, now that her dear little sister was no
longer a goose-girl, but her own dainty little lady-self.

The resolution to provide every poor child in the city with a stocking
full of gifts on Christmas was solemnly filed, and deposited in the
city archives, and was never broken.