ony?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Peony. "And I will hug her and she shall sit down
close by me and drink some of my warm milk."

"Oh, no, Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. "That will not do
at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister.
Little snow-people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony;
we must not give her anything warm to drink!"

There was a minute or two of silence; for Peony, whose short legs were
never weary, had gone again to the other side of the garden. All of a
sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully:

"Look here, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek
out of that rose-colored cloud! And the color does not go away! Is not
that beautiful?"

"Yes, it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pronouncing the three
syllables with deliberate accuracy. "O Violet, only look at her hair!
It is all like gold!"

"Oh, certainly," said Violet, as if it were very much a matter of
course. "That color, you know, comes from the golden clouds that we
see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now. But her lips must
be made very red--redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, Peony, it will make
them red if we both kiss them!"

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her
children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. But as this
did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed
that the snow-child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek.

"Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!" cried Peony.

"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, "and now her lips are very
red. And she blushed a little, too!"

"Oh, what a cold kiss!" cried Peony.

Just then there came a breeze of the pure west wind sweeping through
the garden, and rattling the parlor windows. It sounded so wintry cold
that the mother was about to tap on the window-pane with her thimbled
finger to summon the two children in when they both cried out to her
with one voice:

"Mamma! mamma! We have finished our little snow-sister, and she is
running about the garden with us!"

"What imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother,
putting the last few stitches into Peony's frock. "And it is strange,
too, that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are! I
can hardly help believing now that the snow-image has really come to
life!"

"Dear mamma!" cried Violet, "pray look out and see what a sweet
playmate we have!"

The