nd overheard some of their talk, could not help smiling
at the gravity with which they set about it. They really seemed to
imagine that there would be no difficulty whatever in creating a live
little girl out of the snow. And, to say the truth, if miracles are
ever to be wrought, it will be by putting our hands to the work in
precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of mind as that in which
Violet and Peony now undertook to perform one, without so much as
knowing that it was a miracle. So thought the mother; and thought,
likewise, that the new snow, just fallen from heaven, would be
excellent material to make new beings of, if it were not so very cold.
She gazed at the children a moment longer, delighting to watch their
little figures,--the girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile, and so
delicately colored that she looked like a cheerful thought more than a
physical reality; while Peony expanded in breadth rather than height,
and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as substantial as an
elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her work.
What it was I forget; but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for
Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs.
Again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help
turning her head to the window to see how the children got on with
their snow-image.

Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright little souls
at their task! Moreover, it was really wonderful to observe how
knowingly and skilfully they managed the matter. Violet assumed the
chief direction, and told Peony what to do, while, with her own
delicate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts of the
snow-figure. It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the
children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and
prattling about it. Their mother was quite surprised at this; and the
longer she looked, the more and more surprised she grew.

"What remarkable children mine are!" thought she, smiling with a
mother's pride; and, smiling at herself, too, for being so proud of
them. "What other children could have made anything so like a little
girl's figure out of snow at the first trial? Well; but now I must
finish Peony's new frock, for his grandfather is coming to-morrow, and
I want the little fellow to look handsome."

So she took up the frock, and was soon as busily at work again with her
needle as the two children with thei