t, putting herself before him, "it is true
what I have been telling you! This is our little snow-girl, and she
cannot live any longer than while she breathes the cold west-wind. Do
not make her come into the hot room!"

"Yes, father," shouted Peony, stamping his little foot, so mightily was
he in earnest, "this be nothing but our 'ittle snow-child! She will not
love the hot fire!"

"Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!" cried the father, half vexed,
half laughing at what he considered their foolish obstinacy. "Run into
the house, this moment! It is too late to play any longer, now. I must
take care of this little girl immediately, or she will catch her
death-a-cold!"

"Husband! dear husband!" said his wife, in a low voice,--for she had
been looking narrowly at the snow-child, and was more perplexed than
ever,--"there is something very singular in all this. You will think me
foolish,--but--but--may it not be that some invisible angel has been
attracted by the simplicity and good faith with which our children set
about their undertaking? May he not have spent an hour of his
immortality in playing with those dear little souls? and so the result
is what we call a miracle. No, no! Do not laugh at me; I see what a
foolish thought it is!"

"My dear wife," replied the husband, laughing heartily, "you are as
much a child as Violet and Peony."

And in one sense so she was, for all through life she had kept her
heart full of childlike simplicity and faith, which was as pure and
clear as crystal; and, looking at all matters through this transparent
medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound that other people laughed
at them as nonsense and absurdity.

But now kind Mr. 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 r