ut--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
neighbours, 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 into 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 litt