YOU would never think, to see the Matches lying so quietly in their box in the daytime, that they really have rather a pleasant life, and very exciting adventures. But they do. Every night the Matches creep out of their box and hide it, and put on pretty paper frocks and coats, and go and dance with their friends. That is why you can hardly ever find a match-box in the dark, and if you do it is almost always an empty one.

Well, at one of the Match parties a young wooden Match with a red head fell in love with the sweetest little Princess of a Wax Match you ever saw. She wore a white smooth frock, and her head was brown.

“How I love you!” said the Red-headed Match.

“And I you!” said the brown-headed little lady. “But they tell me your box is in the kitchen. That is very low.”

“Never mind,” said the lover; “I will come and live with you.”

So when the party was over the two went to live in the mother-of-pearl box in the drawing-room. And that was high life indeed.

But the Queen of the Wax Matches was very angry.

“She has married beneath her,” she cried; “off with her head!”

And sure enough at that moment the housemaid came to light the fire, and she struck the little white Princess Match against the bar of the grate, and her brown head fell off! The wooden Match did not want to live now his lady was beheaded, so he pressed forward into the housemaid’s hand—and she struck him and lit the fire with him; and what was left of him fell beside his white lady. So the two faithful lovers were buried together in the ashes.

E. Nesbit.