The Golden Age children said that they didn't like to play with grown folks; after people got to be thirty or ninety they thought they became very uninteresting, and didn't have the right kind of feelings; unless they were Princes and went on adventures.
Miss Muffet didn't agree with this because some of her best friends were elderly peasants whose faces were all puckered up because they had been smiling for so many years. She wished, though, that they were not so shy.
The shyest persons in the room
"I suppose it's because they are not used to going to parties; neither am I, for that matter, but then I'm not so much used as they are to not going."
Perhaps the shyest persons in the room were an old German shoemaker and his wife, whom Miss Muffet had for a long time loved and admired, though they had not known it. Indeed, they didn't know that any one was ever admired unless he had found a pot of gold or done something equally praiseworthy. The shoemaker had never done anything but make shoes, and his wife did the cooking and made the clothes for the family. When they received the invitation to the party, they were greatly astonished and thought it must be a mistake, but the village priest, who read the letter, told them that it was certainly intended for them, though why they were invited was a mystery. When the priest told them that it was a mystery, they knew that it was so, and came along bowing and curtsying as if all the persons they met were their betters, though really only one or two were half so good. Miss Muffet ran to them and put her hands in theirs.
Scampering off into the dark
"I have just loved you since the time I heard what you did for the little elves who used to come at night after you had gone to bed and finish your work for you. Some people take what's done for them and think no more about it except that they're lucky; but you sat up till midnight and peeped into the room where the elves were working, and saw that they didn't have enough clothes to keep them warm. Then you made each one a shirt and a coat and waistcoat and a pair of trousers and a little pair of shoes. What fun it must have been, next night, to watch them putting on their things and scampering off into the dark. I never heard of elves being dressed up like that."