The next day, after the sun rose in the east, a crowd gathered around a corner of some house on the streets of this rather small town in Western Europe. They pointed at the snow-covered spot and quietly argued about something.
"Eh?"
ヾo?
Little Annie had been planning to leave this boring town and head east for a walk, but when she saw the crowd, she grew curious and couldn't help going over to take a look.
However...
"!!"
o(*)o!!
Before long, she saw that in the snow-covered corner where everyone was pointing, there was a little girl with a head of long, curly golden hair. She was barefoot, her feet stiff and mottled blue and purple with cold, and she wore a thin, filthy smock made of rough cloth.
By then,
the warm sunlight had begun to rise, shining down on the girl's small, frail body, which had already stiffened from the cold.
Annie also clearly saw that, in a bizarre way, the girl was curled up there with a smile on her face. Her little hands clutched a charred matchstick that had burned almost down to her fingers. A pile of unburned yellow-phosphorus matches lay scattered at her feet, partly covered by snow, and even more matches were tucked into the pockets of her shabby apron...
"Look..."
"Is she dead?"
"She's definitely dead!"
"Is she the Little Match Girl? But didn't she die two years ago?"
"That's not her. Isn't she Maple, the daughter of the tailor down south? I know her. Look at the freckles on her face—that's her!"
"!!"
"It really is!"
"How did she end up here?"
"No idea..."
"Has anyone gone to tell her family?"
"They went already, but there's no one at home. The tailor and his wife left early this morning to