So they climbed back upon the table where they used to stand.
'You see, we have come back to this,' said the Chimney-Sweeper: 'we might have saved ourselves all the trouble we have had.'
'If the old grandfather were only riveted!' said the Shepherdess. 'I wonder if that is dear?'
And he was really riveted. The family had his back cemented, and a great rivet was passed through his neck: he was as good as new, only he could no longer nod.
'It seems you have become proud since you fell to pieces,' said the Billygoat-legs-Lieutenant-and-Major-General-War-Commander-Sergeant. 'I don't think you have any reason to give yourself such airs. Am I to have her, or am I not?'
And the Chimney-Sweeper and the little Shepherdess looked at the old Chinaman most piteously, for they were afraid he might nod. But he could not do that, and it was irksome to him to tell a stranger that he always had a rivet in his neck. And so the porcelain people remained together, and they blessed Grandfather's rivet, and loved one another until they broke.
THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL
It was terribly cold; it snowed and was already almost dark, and evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through the streets. When she left her own house she certainly had had slippers on; but of what use were they? They were very big slippers, and her mother had used them till then, so big were they. The little maid lost them as she slipped across the road, where two carriages were rattling by terribly fast. One slipper was not to be found again, and a boy had seized the other, and run away with it. He said he could use it very well as a cradle, some day when he had children of his own. So now the little girl went with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and a bundle of them
