Her little hands were almost benumbed with the cold.  Ah, a match might do her good, if she could only draw one from the bundle, and rub it against the wall, and warm her hands at it.  She drew one out.  R-r-atch! how it spluttered and burned!  It was a warm bright flame, like a little candle, when she held her hands over it; it was a wonderful little light!  It really seemed to the little girl as if she sat before a great polished stove, with bright brass feet and a brass cover.  How the fire burned! how comfortable it was! but the little flame went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the burned match in her hand.

A second was rubbed against the wall.  It burned up, and when the light fell upon the wall it became transparent like a thin veil, and she could see through it into the room.  On the table a snow-white cloth was spread; upon it stood a shining dinner service; the roast goose smoked gloriously, stuffed with apples and dried plums.  And what was still more splendid to behold, the goose hopped down from the dish, and waddled along the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl.  Then the match went out, and only the thick, damp, cold wall was before her.  She lighted another match.  Then she was sitting under a beautiful Christmas tree; it was greater and more ornamented than the one she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant’s.  Thousands of candles burned upon the green branches, and colored pictures like those in the print shops looked down upon them.  The little girl stretched forth her hand toward them; then the match went out.  The Christmas lights mounted higher.  She saw them now as stars in the sky:  one of them fell down, forming a long line of fire.

“Now some one is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only person who had loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star fell down a soul mounted up to God.

She rubbed another match against the wall; it became bright again, and in the brightness the old grandmother stood clear and shining, mild and lovely.

“Grandmother!” cried the child, “O! take me with you!  I know you will go when the match is burned out.  You will vanish like the warm fire, the warm food, and the great, glorious Christmas tree!”

And she hastily rubbed the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to hold her grandmother fast.  And the matches burned with such a glow that it became brighter than in the middle of the day; grandmother had never been so large or so beautiful.  She took the little girl in her arms, and both flew in brightness and joy above the earth, very, very high, and up there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor care—­they were with God.

But in the corner, leaning against the wall, sat the poor girl with red cheeks and smiling mouth, frozen to death on the last evening of the Old Year.  The New Year’s sun rose upon a little corpse!  The child sat there, stiff and cold, with the matches, of which one bundle was burned.  “She wanted to warm herself,” the people said.  No one imagined what a beautiful thing she had seen, and in what glory she had gone in with her grandmother to the New Year’s Day.