No doubt I now grew very pale; but I talked more fluently and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased—and what could I do. It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath—and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly—more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men—but the noise steadily increased. O God! what could I do? I foamed—I raved—I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder—louder—louder. And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?
They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror! this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I can bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die!—and now—again!—hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!
“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed—tear up the planks! here! here! it is the beating of his hideous heart!”
Edgar Allan Poe.
THE LITTLE MATCH-GIRL.
A CHRISTMAS STORY.
It was terribly cold; it snowed and was already almost dark and evening coming on—the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a little girl, bareheaded and barefooted, was walking through the streets. When she left her own house she certainly had slippers on, slippers, but of what use were they? They were very big slippers, and her mother had used them until 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 ran away with it. So now the little girl went with 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 in her hand. No one had bought anything of her all day, and no one had given her a farthing.
Shivering with cold and hunger she crept along, a picture of misery, poor little girl! The snowflakes covered her long, fair hair, which fell in pretty curls over her neck, but she did not think of that now. In all the windows lights were shining and there was a glorious smell of roast goose, for it was Christmas Eve. Yes, she thought of that!