And now the children began to see one of the laws of nature turn upside
down and stand on its head like an acrobat. Any grown-up person would
tell you that money is hard to get and easy to spend. But the fairy
money had been easy to get, and spending it was not only hard, it was
almost impossible. The trades-people of Rochester seemed to shrink, to a
trades-person, from the glittering fairy gold ("furrin money" they
called it, for the most part).

To begin with, Anthea, who had had the misfortune to sit on her hat
earlier in the day, wished to buy another. She chose a very beautiful
one, trimmed with pink roses and the blue breasts of peacocks. It was
marked in the window, "Paris Model, three guineas."

"I'm glad," she said, "because it says guineas, and not sovereigns,
which we haven't got."

But when she took three of the spade guineas in her hand, which was by
this time rather dirty owing to her not having put on gloves before
going to the gravel-pit, the black-silk young lady in the shop looked
very hard at her, and went and whispered something to an older and
uglier lady, also in black silk, and then they gave her back the money
and said it was not current coin.

"It's good money," said Anthea, "and it's my own."

"I daresay," said the lady, "but it's not the kind of money that's
fashionable now, and we don't care about taking it."

"I believe they think we've stolen it," said Anthea, rejoining the