Some of the Goblins were quick enough to escape, but most of them went into the ground, and all the cake and candy and ice cream with them.
The Queen and her Fairies jumped up and looked around. Everything was changed and the Fairies shivered as they looked.
The trees were brown and the bushes and the leaves were falling from the trees, making the ground look as though it had a brown carpet over it.
The air was frosty and the poor little Fairies looked about in amazement at the dreary scene before them. The Goblins that escaped were running around and calling on the Queen to help them rescue their brothers.
"It is all your fault," they told her. "If you had asked the Gnomes to your party this would not have happened. Now you must help us to get our brothers out of the power of those bad Gnomes.
"What shall I do?" asked the poor Queen. She felt that her party had been a failure and thought if she had asked the Gnomes it could not have been worse.
Just then a Goblin came running toward them. He had been sent by the Gnomes. They told him to say that his brothers would all be held prisoners until the Fairies sent them all the ice cream they wanted.
The Fairies and the Goblins hurried to the kitchen in the hollow, but it was empty. The squirrels and the rabbits had hurried off when they felt the frosty air and saw everything turning brown.
"What is to be done?" asked the Goblins, "You ought to help us," they told the Queen again. "If we had not come to your party we should not have gotten into trouble."
The Queen could not resist replying to this remark the second time. "If your brothers and you had not climbed on the table, but kept your seats, as well-behaved Goblins should, you would not have been in need of help.