The Star-Money 星币

There was once on a time a little girl whose father and mother
were dead, and she was so poor that she no longer had any little
room to live in, or bed to sleep in, and at last she had nothing else
but the clothes she was wearing and a little bit of bread in her hand
which some charitable soul had given her. She was, however, good
and pious. And as she was thus forsaken by all the world, she went
forth into the open country, trusting in the good God. Then a poor
man met her, who said, "Ah, give me something to eat, I am so hungry!"
She reached him the whole of her piece of bread, and said, "May God
bless it to thy use," and went onwards. Then came a child who moaned
and said, "My head is so cold, give me something to cover it with." So
she took off her hood and gave it to him; and when she had walked a little
farther, she met another child who had no jacket and was frozen with cold.
Then she gave it her own; and a little farther on one begged for a frock, and
she gave away that also. At length she got into a forest and it had already
become dark, and there came yet another child, and asked for a little shirt,
and the good little girl thought to herself, "It is a dark night and no one sees
thee, thou canst very well give thy little shirt away," and took it off, and gave
away that also. And as she so stood, and had not one single thing left, suddenly
some stars from heaven fell down, and they were nothing else but hard smooth
pieces of money, and although she had just given her little shirt away, she had a
new one which was of the very finest linen. Then she gathered together the money
into this, and was rich all the days of her life.