all run about and play with us all winter long. Won't it be nice?"

"O, 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 into the warm parlor; for, you know, our little
snow-sister will not love the warmth."

[Illustration: {Violet and Peony have a snowball fight}]

And forthwith the children began this great business of making a
snow-image that should run about; while their mother, who was sitting
at the window and 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 tasks! 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