had I but enjoyed myself while
I could have done so! but now it is too late."

Then a lad came and chopped the tree into small pieces, till a large
bundle lay in a heap on the ground. The pieces were placed in the
fire, and they blazed up brightly, while the tree sighed so deeply
that each sigh was like a little pistol shot. Then the children, who
were at play, came and seated themselves in front of the fire and
looked at it, and cried, "Pop, pop." But at each "pop," which was a
deep sigh, the tree was thinking of a summer day in the forest, or of
some winter night there when the stars shone brightly, and of
Christmas evening and of Humpty-Dumpty, the only story it had ever
heard, or knew how to relate,--till at last it was consumed.

The boys still played in the garden, and the youngest wore the golden
star on his breast with which the tree had been adorned during the
happiest evening of its existence. Now all was past; the tree's life
was past, and the story also past! for all stories must come to an end
some time or other.

[*] From "Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales," adapted by J. H. Stickney. By
permission of the publishers--Ginn and Company.

THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL[*]

Hans Andersen

It was dreadfully cold; it was snowing fast, and was almost dark, as
evening came on--the last evening of the year. In the cold and the
darkness, there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded
and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is
true; but they were much too large for her feet,--slippers that her
mother had used until then, and the poor little girl lost them in
running across the street when two carriages were passing terribly
fast. When she looked for them, one was not to be found, and a boy
seized the other and ran away with it, saying he would use it for a
cradle some day, when he had children of his own.

So on the little girl went with her bare feet, that were red and blue
with cold. In an old apron that she wore were bundles of matches, and
she carried a bundle also in her hand. No one had bought so much as a
bunch all the long day, and no one had given her even a penny.

Poor little girl! Shivering with cold and hunger she crept along, a
perfect picture of misery!

The snowflakes fell on her long flaxen hair, which hung in pretty
curls about her throat; but she thought not of her beauty nor of the
cold. Lights gleamed in every window, and there came to her the savory
smell