ces of his two children, who still kept
murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good
Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlor door carefully
behind him.

Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the
house, and had barely reached the street-gate when he was recalled by
the screams of Violet and Peony and the rapping of a thimbled finger
against the parlor window.

"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face
through the window panes. "There is no need of going for the child's
parents!"

"We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he re-entered
the parlor. "You would bring her in; and now our poor--dear--beau-ti-ful
little snow-sister is thawed!"

And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so
that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in
this everyday world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might
be going to thaw, too. In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an
explanation of his wife.

She could only reply that, being summoned to the parlor by the cries of
Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless
it were the remains of a heap of snow which, while she was gazing at it,
melted quite away upon the hearthrug.

"And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a
pool of water in front of the stove.

"Yes, father," said Violet, looking reproachfully at him through her
tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!"

"Father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and--I shudder to say--shaking
his little fist at the common-sensible man. "We told you how it would
be. What for did you bring her in?"

And the stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to glare at
good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon triumphing in the mischief which
it had done!

THE CASTLE OF GEMS

BY SOPHIE MAY

Once upon a time, though I cannot tell when, and in what country I do
not now remember, there lived a maiden as fair as a lily, as gentle as a
dewdrop, and as modest as a violet. A pure, sweet name she had: It was
Blanche.

She stood one evening, with her friend Victor, by the shore of a lake.
Never had the youth or maiden seen the moonlight so enchanting; but they
did not know--

"It was midsummer day,
When all the fairy people
From elf-land came away."

Presently, while they gazed at the lak