r. Lindsey had entered the garden, breaking away from
his two children, who still sent their shrill voices after him,
beseeching him to let the snow-child stay and enjoy herself in the
cold west wind. As he approached, the snow-birds took to flight. The
little white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking her head, as if to
say, "Pray, do not touch me!" and roguishly, as it appeared, leading
him through the deepest of the snow. Once, the good man stumbled, and
floundered down upon his face, so that, gathering himself up again,
with the snow sticking to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he looked as
white and wintry as a snow-image of the largest size. Some of the
neighbors, meanwhile, seeing him from their windows, wondered what
could possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about his garden in
pursuit of a snow-drift, which the west wind was driving hither and
thither! At length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the little
stranger in a corner, where she could not possibly escape him. His
wife had been looking on, and, it being nearly twilight, was
wonderstruck to observe how the snow-child gleamed and sparkled, and
how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her; and when driven
into the corner, she positively glistened like a star! It was a frosty
kind of brightness, too, like that of an icicle in the moonlight. The
wife thought it strange that good Mr. Lindsey should see nothing
remarkable in the snow-child's appearance.

"Come, you odd little thing!" cried the honest man, seizing her by the
hand, "I have caught you at last, and will make you comfortable in
spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair of worsted stockings
on your frozen little feet, and you shall have a good thick shawl to
wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I am afraid, is actually
frost-bitten. But we will make it all right. Come along in."

And so, with a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all
purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took
the snow-child by the hand, and led her towards the house. She
followed him, droopingly and reluctant; for all the glow and sparkle
was gone out of her figure; and whereas just before she had resembled
a bright, frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the
cold horizon, she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As kind
Mr. Lindsey led her up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony looked
into his face,--their eyes full of tears, which froze before they
c