say,
"O little page, look here!
Am I, who sing to sleep so well,
A queen for child to fear?"

He raised his eyes, and lo! the bride
Looked on the page and smiled,
And then he knew the queen had played
At nurse-maid for a child.

And well he graced the wedding-feast
And bore her velvet train,
And at his dear queen's side thenceforth
Was never sad again.

[Illustration]

THE SNOW-IMAGE

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with
chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of
their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow.

The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender
and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her
parents and other people who were familiar with her used to call
Violet.

But her brother was known by the title of Peony, on account of the
ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody
think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers.

"Yes, Violet--yes, my little Peony," said their kind mother; "you may
go and play in the snow."

Forth sallied the two children, with a hop-skip-and-jump that carried
them at once into the very heart of a huge snowdrift, whence Violet
emerged like a snow bunting, while little Peony floundered out with his
round face in full bloom.

Then what a merry time had they! To look at them frolicking in the
wintry garden, you would have thought that the dark and pitiless storm
had been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for
Violet and Peony; and that they themselves had been created, as the
snowbirds were, to take delight only in the tempest and in the white
mantle which it spread over the earth.

At last, when they had frosted one another all over with handfuls of
snow, Violet, after laughing heartily at little Peony's figure, was
struck with a new idea.

"You look exactly like a snow-image, Peony," said she, "if your cheeks
were not so red. And that puts me in mind! Let us make an image out of
snow--an image of a little girl--and it shall be our sister, and shall
run about and play with us all winter long. Won't it be nice?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he was but a
little boy. "That will be nice! And mamma shall see it!"

"Yes," answered Violet; "mamma shall see the new little girl. But she
must not make her come