It was dreadfully cold; it was snowing fast, and was almost dark, as evening came on — the last evening of the year. In the cold and the darkness, there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded and with naked feet.
When she left home she had slippers on, but they were much too large for her — slippers that her mother had used till then, and the poor little girl lost them in running across the street when two carriages were passing terribly fast. When she looked for them, one was not to be found, and a boy seized the other and ran away with it, saying he would use it for a cradle someday, when he had children of his own.
