m the cold, but danced so lightly over the
snow that the tips of her toes left hardly a print in its surface; while
Violet could but just keep pace with her, and Peony's short legs
compelled him to lag behind.

All this while, the mother stood on the threshold, wondering how a
little girl could look so much like a flying snowdrift, or how a
snowdrift could look so very like a little girl.

"Violet, my darling, what is this child's name?" asked she. "Does she
live near us?"

"Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laughing to think that her mother
did not comprehend so very plain an affair, "this is our little
snow-sister whom we have just been making!"

"Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his mother and looking up
simply into her face. "This is our snow-image! Is it not a nice 'ittle
child?"

"Violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, "tell me the truth without
any jest. Who is this little girl?"

"My darling mamma," answered Violet, looking seriously into her mother's
face, surprised that she should need any further explanation, "I have
told you truly who she is. It is our little snow-image which Peony and I
have been making. Peony will tell you so, as well as I."

"Yes, mamma," asseverated Peony, with much gravity in his crimson little
phiz; "this is 'ittle snow-child. Is not she a nice one? But, mamma, her
hand is, oh, so very cold!"

While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the street
gate was thrown open and the father of Violet and Peony appeared,
wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap drawn down over his ears,
and the thickest of gloves upon his hands.

Mr. Lindsey was a middle-aged man, with a weary and yet a happy look in
his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if he had been busy all the
day long and was glad to get back to his quiet home. His eyes brightened
at the sight of his wife and children, although he could not help
uttering a word or two of surprise at finding the whole family in the
open air on so bleak a day, and after sunset, too.

He soon perceived the little white stranger, sporting to and fro in the
garden like a dancing snow-wreath, and the flock of snowbirds fluttering
about her head.

"Pray, what little girl may that be?" inquired this very sensible man.
"Surely her mother must be crazy to let her go out in such bitter
weather as it has been to-day, with only that flimsy white gown and
those thin slippers!"

"My dear husband," said his wife