Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL It was cold, very cold. It snowed harder and harder as evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, bareheaded and 5 barefooted, was walking along the streets. When she left home, it is true, she had had slippers on; but of what use were they? They were very large, — so large that her mother had worn them last. The little girl 10 lost them as she ran across the street to get out of the way of two carts rattling by. One slipper was not to be found again. A boy seized the other, and ran away with it. He thought he could use it very well for a 15 cradle some day when he had children of his own. So now the little girl went with naked feet, which were red and blue with cold. In an old apron she carried a lot of matches,and she had a bundle of them in her hand. No one had bought from her all day long; no one had given j her a penny. Shivering with 5 cold and hunger, she crept along, the picture of misery, poor child. The snowflakes 10 covered her fair hair which fell in long curls about her neck ; but she did not think of 15 that now. In all the windows lights were shining and there was a tempting smell of roast 20 goose, for it was New Year’s Eve. Ah, it was of that she was thinking! In a corner formed by two houses she crouched down in a little heap. Though she drew her bare feet up under her, she grew colder and colder. She dared not go home, for she had sold no matches and had 5 not a penny to show. Her father would be sure to beat her, and besides it was cold at home, too. They had only a roof over them, through which the wind whistled, though the largest cracks had been stopped with 10 straw and rags. The little girl’s hands were almost numb with cold. Ah! a matc…