Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/95



DARESAY you have heard of the girl who stepped on a loaf, so as not to soil her shoes, and all the misfortunes that befell her in consequence. At any rate the story has been written and printed, too.

She was a poor child, of a proud and arrogant nature, and her disposition was bad from the beginning. When she was quite tiny, her greatest delight was to catch flies and pull their wings off, to make creeping insects of them. Then she would catch chafers and beetles and stick them on a pin, after which she would push a leaf or a bit of paper close enough for them to seize with their feet; for the pleasure of seeing them writhe and wriggle in their efforts to free themselves from the pins.

"The chafer is reading now," said little Inger; "look at it turning over the page!"

She got worse rather than better as she grew older; but she was very pretty, and that no doubt was her misfortune, or she might have had many a beating which she never got. 67