iolet, with tranquillity, as if it were very
much a matter of course. "That color, you know, comes from the golden
clouds, that we see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now.
But her lips must be made very red,--redder than her cheeks. Perhaps,
Peony, it will make them red, if we both kiss them!"

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her
children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. But, as this
did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed
that the snow-child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek.

"Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!" cried Peony.

"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, "and now her lips are very
red. And she blushed a little, too!"

"O, what a cold kiss!" cried Peony.

Just then there came a breeze of the pure west wind, sweeping through
the garden and rattling the parlor windows. It sounded so wintry cold,
that the mother was about to tap on the window-pane with her thimbled
finger, to summon the two children in, when they both cried out to her
with one voice. The tone was not a tone of surprise, although they
were evidently a good deal excited; it appeared rather as if they were
very much rejoiced at some event that had now happened, but which they
had been looking for, and had reckoned upon all along.

"Mamma! mamma! We have finished our little snow sister, and she is
running about the garden with us!"

"What imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother,
putting the last few stitches into Peony's frock. "And it is strange,
too, that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are!
I can hardly help believing, now, that the snow-image has really come
to life!"

"Dear mamma!" cried Violet, "pray look out, and see what a sweet
playmate we have!"

The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to look forth
from the window. The sun was now gone out of the sky, leaving,
however, a rich inheritance of his brightness among those purple and
golden clouds which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. But
there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on the window or
on the snow; so that the good lady could look all over the garden, and
see every thing and everybody in it. And what do you think she saw
there? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darling children. Ah,
but whom or what did she besides? Why, if you will believe me, there
was a small figure of a gir