m 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.

Piccola had no kind father, no big brother or sister, and no sweet
baby to play with and love. She and her mother lived all alone in an
old stone house that looked on a dark, narrow street. They were very
poor, and the mother was away from home almost every day, washing
clothes and scrubbing floors, and w