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102 of sorrow and anxiety. She looked very pale and disturbed on the following morning, when Fred told her that the mouse had not been caught, so that her mother thought that she was grieving for her sugar things, or perhaps was afraid of the mouse. "Do not grieve, dear child," she said; "we will soon get rid of him. If the trap does not answer, Fred shall bring his gray secretary of legation."

As soon as Maria was alone in the sitting-room, she stepped to the glass case, and said, sobbing, to Nutcracker: "Ah, my dear, good Mr. Drosselmeier, what can I—poor, unhappy maiden—do? for, if I should give up all my picture-books, and even my new, beautiful frock, to the hateful mouse, he will ask more and more. And, when I have nothing left to give him, he will at last want me, instead of you, to bite in pieces." As little Maria grieved and sorrowed in this way, she observed a large spot of blood on Nutcracker's neck, which had been