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98 much about; but close in a corner stood her darling, a little red-cheeked baby, and now the tears came into her eyes. "Ah, dear Master Drosselmeier," she said, turning to Nutcracker, "there is nothing that I will not do to save you, but this is very hard!" Nutcracker looked all the while so sorrowfully, that Maria, who felt as if she saw the Mouse-King open his seven mouths, to devour the unhappy youth, resolved to sacrifice them all. So at evening, she placed all her sugar figures down at the foot of the glass case, just as she had done before with her sugar-plums and cake. She kissed the shepherd, and the shepherdess, and the lambs, and at last took her darling, the little red-cheeked baby out of the corner, and placed it down behind all the rest; Farmer Caraway and the Maid of Orleans must stand in the first row.

"Well, that is too bad!" said her mother, the next morning. "A mouse must have got