But the match went out then, and nothing was left to her but the thick, damp wall.

She lighted another match.  And now she was under a most beautiful Christmas tree, larger and far more prettily trimmed than the one she had seen through the glass doors at the rich merchant’s.  Hundreds of wax tapers were burning on the green branches, and gay figures, such as she had seen in the shop windows, looked down upon her.  The child stretched out her hands to them; then the match went out.

Still the lights of the Christmas tree rose higher and higher.  She saw them as stars in heaven, and one of them fell, forming a long trail of fire.

“Now some one is dying,” murmured the child softly; for her grandmother, the only person who had loved her and who was now dead, had told her that whenever a star falls a soul mounts up to God.

She struck yet another match against the wall, and again it was light; and in the brightness there appeared before her the dear old grandmother, bright and radiant, yet sweet and mild, and happy as she had never looked on earth.

“Oh, grandmother,” cried the child, “take me with you.  I know you will go away when the match burns out.  You, too, will vanish, like the warm stove, the splendid New Year’s feast, the beautiful Christmas Tree.”  And lest her grandmother should disappear, she rubbed the whole bundle of matches against the wall.

And the matches burned with such a brilliant light that it became brighter than noonday.  Her grandmother had never looked so grand and beautiful.  She took the little girl in her arms, and both flew together, joyously and gloriously, mounting higher and higher, far above the earth; and for them there was neither hunger, nor cold, nor care;—­they were with God.

But in the corner, at the dawn of day, sat the poor girl, leaning against the wall, with red cheeks and smiling mouth,—­frozen to death on the last evening of the old year.  Stiff and cold she sat, with the matches, one bundle of which was burned.

“She wanted to warm herself, poor little thing,” people said.  No one imagined what sweet visions she had had, or how gloriously she had gone with her grandmother to enter upon the joys of a new year.

[*] From “Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales.”  By permission of publishers—­Ginn & Company.

LITTLE PICCOLA[*]

Suggested by One of Mrs. Celia Thaxter’s Poems

     “Story-telling is a real strengthening spirit-bath.”—­Froebel.

Piccola lived in Italy, where the oranges grow, and where all the year the sun shines warm and bright.  I suppose you think Piccola a very strange name for a little girl; but in her country it was not strange at all, and her mother thought it the sweetest name a little girl ever had.