and
suffering everything, and my not having one visit back," grumbled the
Snow Man. But he stood still; he never took a step forward after Dame
Louisa had set her bonnet on fire.

It was lucky Dame Louisa had worn a worsted scarf tied over her
bonnet, and could now use it for a bonnet.

The cold was intense, and had it not been that Dame Penny and Dame
Louisa both wore their Bay State shawls over their beaver sacques, and
their stone-marten tippets and muffs, and blue worsted stockings
drawn over their shoes, they would certainly have frozen. As for the
children, they would never have reached home alive if it had not been
for the pails and tubs of water.

"Do you feel as if you were thawing?" Dame Louisa asked the children
after they had left the Snow Man behind.

"Yes, ma'am," said they.

Dame Louisa drove as fast as she could, with thankful tears running
down her cheeks. "I've been a wicked, cross old woman," said she again
and again, "and that is what blasted my Christmas-trees."

It was the dawn of Christmas-day when they came in sight of Dame
Louisa's house.

"Oh! what is that twinkling out in the yard?" cried the children.

They could all see little fairy-like lights twinkling out in Dame
Louisa's yard.

"It looks just as the Christmas-trees used to," said Dame Penny.

[ILLUSTRATION: "I'LL PUT THIS RIGHT IN YOUR FACE AND--MELT YOU!"]

"Oh! I can't believe it," cried Dame Louisa, her heart beating wildly.

But when they came opposite the yard, they saw that it was true. Dame
Louisa's Christmas-trees stood there all twinkling with lights, and
covered with trailing garlands of pop-corn, oranges, apples,
and candy-bags; their yellow branches had turned green and the
Christmas-trees were in full glory.

"Oh! what is that shining so out in Dame Penny's yard?" cried the
children, who were entirely thawed, and only needed to get home to
their parents and have some warm breakfast, and Christmas-presents, to
be quite themselves. "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" cried Dame Penny, and Dame
Louisa and the children chimed in, calling, "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!"

It was indeed the silver hen, and following her were twelve little
silver chickens. She had stolen a nest in Dame Louisa's barn and
nobody had known it until she appeared on Christmas morning with her
brood of silver chickens.

"Every scholar shall have one of the silver chickens for a Christmas
present," said Dame Penny.

"And each shall have one of my Christmas