THE LITTLE MATCH-SELLER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1490, 5 June 1880, Page 27

THE LITTLE MATCH-SELLER.

It was a cold afternoon in the middle of December, the snoW driving in the faces of those few whom business, or other reasons, had oompelled to venture out. The lights were being lit in many houses already ; the half-hour after 3 had just struck at St, Paul's. Standing underneath the verandah o£ a cook shop in one of the principal thoroughfares waß a girl, whose pale, wan face suggested a weary experience in this world's troubles and trials. Looking wist fully at her still large stock of match-boxes, and then at the window, she sighed wearily, Oh 1 if only she had but the money for half her stock, she would buy — what would she buy 1 A penny loaf and a plate of that nice soup : for Bhe was so hungry and cold . While musing thus, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and turning round, shs saw a man's kindly face looking at her. " Poor little one ! have you not sold out yet ? Well, give me a box or two, and here is the money." So saying tha man passed on. Looking at the money, Kate discovered to her surprise, instead ol a threepenny-piece, half -a- sovereign, which the stranger had given her by mistake for threepence, perhaps Dot noticing the feel o£ the coin, owing to the cold. The man by this time had gone out of sight, and there stood our little hero, debating whether she had a right to the whole of the coin, it having been given to her, or whether the man had made a mistake, and only meant her to have threepence. If she only knew quite certainly what a little fortune it would be Would it be right to spend it 1 most likely he who gave it to her would not miss it, and if he did it would not be a very serious affair to him. At anyrate she would spend what wa3 right, so marching boldly into the shop she asked for what she had longed for such a short time ago. Soon despatching her warm supper, the little one again took up her matchboxes, and wearily walked out, to face again the cold wind and snow, which seemed so pitiless to her and her poor clothes, to walk about till she had sold enough to procure a scanty lodging for the night. She held her change irmly in one hand, and with the other drew her poor clothes together. The next day was a bright frosty one, and Kate decided to find out her friend and return to him his money ; but not that day, nor the next, nor all that week did she catch a glimpse of him. Meanwhile time wore on, Bpring and summer drew swiftly on, and Katie's circun> stances gradually improved, but still she dd not findfthe stranger. All this time the change was carefully kept sewn in her dress t: safety, and if she saw him at any time c would have it ready. One summer evening, while wending her way homewards, she thought that at laßt she saw the man who had given her the money : running up to him she was not mistaken.

" Oh, sir," she called out, " I have been looking for you such a long time to give you the change I owe you."

"Owe me, child? why I have been away six months and don't even remember you. How was ii ?

" Don't you remember, sir, one cold night last December, you bought some matches from me and gave me half a soverlgn instead of a threepenny bit? Well, I thought it must have been a mistake, so I have saved the change ; here it is."' So saying Bhe handed him the money. The man inquiring of her found out how Bhe lived, and where, and put her in a refuge for the homeless, where she grew up a useful woman, and now tells this incident to her ohildren. 1 Therese.

The Ultramontane organ, the Germania, says the Pope has expressed to the Archbishop of Cologne an approval of hia condemnation of Socialism, adding that it is his (the Pope's) fervent hope that peaoe in ecolesiastioal matters may be restored in the German Fatherland ; that the Holy See will leave nothing undone to attain that result.