The Little Match Girl

Most terribly cold it was. It snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bare-headed and with naked feet.

When she left home she had slippers on, it is true, but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had hitherto worn. So large were they. And the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.

One slipper was nowhere to be found. The other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it. He thought it would do capitally for a cradle, when he, some day or other, should have children myself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny, naked feet that were quite red and

blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole live-long day. No one had given her a single farthing. She crept along, trembling with cold and hunger. A very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing. The flakes of snow covered her long, fair hair, which

fell in beautiful curls around her neck, but of that, of course, she never once now thought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelled so deliciously of roast goose For you know it was New Year's Eve, yes, of that she thought.

In a corner farmed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the other, she seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet she had drawn close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go home she did not venture far she had not sold any matches, and could not bring a farthing of money. From her father she would certainly