Explore "Lotty" by Carmen Sylva on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was Christmas Eve. The snow was whirling in dense masses outside, and the wind was so strong that it swept one side of the street quite clean, and piled up whole mountains of snow across the way. Through all the windows there gleamed the bright light of the merry Christmas trees, and the voices of hundreds of happy children were heard. Alone and softly Sorrow crept along in the snowstorm. She turned her eyes neither to right nor left, that she might throw no shadow over these Christmas gayeties; she was making for a house where there was no joy to destroy. She passed two children -- a girl in thin outgrown clothes, and a little boy who wanted to see all the lovely things that were inside the houses. His sister raised him up with all her strength, so that he could grapple hold of the window-sill, and with enchantment he looked at all the wonders within. But lifting her arms had made her poor old dress crack, and a sleeve came out of its seam.
A tear ran down her face; it froze on her cheek. Sorrow stroked her head with her hand.