flight. He followed the snow
child into a corner where she could not possibly escape. It was
wonderful how she gleamed and sparkled and seemed to shed a glow all
around her. She glistened like a star, or like an icicle in the
moonlight.

"Come, you odd little thing," cried the honest man, seizing the snow
child by her hand. "I have caught you at last and will make you
comfortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice new pair of
stockings on your feet and you shall have a warm shawl to wrap
yourself in. Your poor little nose, I am afraid, is frost bitten. But
we will make it all right. Come along in."

So he led the snow child toward the house. She followed him, drooping
and reluctant. All the glow and sparkle were gone from her.

"After all," said the mother, "she does look as if she were made of
snow."

A puff of the west wind blew against the snow child; she sparkled
again like a star.

"That is because she is half frozen, poor little thing!" said the
father. "Here we are where it is warm!"

Sad and drooping looked the little white maiden as she stood on the
hearth rug. The heat of the stove struck her like a pestilence. She
looked wistfully toward the windows and caught a glimpse, through its
red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, the frosty stars and the
delicious intensity of the cold night.

The mother had gone in search of the shawl and stockings, and Violet
and Peony looked with terror at their little snow sister.

"I am going to find her parents," said the father, but he had scarcely
reached the gate when he heard the children scream. He saw their
mother's white face at the window.

"There is no need of going for the child's parents," she said.

There was no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were a heap
of snow which, while they were gazing at it, melted quite away upon
the hearth rug.

"What a quantity of snow the children brought in on their feet," their
father said at last. "It has made quite a puddle here before the
stove."

The stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to grin like a
red-eyed demon at the mischief which it had done, for the story of the
snow image is one of those rare cases where common sense finds itself
at fault.

THE FIRE THAT WOULD NOT BURN

There was great trouble in the white castle that stood at the top of
the hill. The huge fire that had burned in the castle kitchen for
years had suddenly gone out, and no one seemed to be able to l