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.

FLOWERS WITHOUT FRUIT

Prune thou thy words; the thoughts control
That o'er thee swell and throng:--
They will condense within thy soul,
And