C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
What the Moon Saw
By Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875)
H
“I have seen a cadet promoted to be an officer, and dressing himself for the first time in his gorgeous uniform; I have seen young girls in bridal attire, and the prince’s young bride in her wedding dress: but I never saw such bliss as that of a little four-year-old girl whom I watched this evening. She had got a new blue dress, and a new pink hat. The finery was just put on, and all were calling for light, for the moonbeams that came through the window were not bright enough. They wanted very different lights from that. There stood the little girl, stiff as a doll, keeping her arms anxiously off her dress, and her fingers stretched wide apart. Oh! what happiness beamed from her eyes, from her whole face. ‘To-morrow you may go to walk in the dress,’ said the mother; and the little one looked up at her hat and down again at her dress, and smiled blissfully. ‘Mother,’ she cried, ‘what will the little dogs think when they see me in all these fine clothes?’”