r snow-image. But still, as the
needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the dress, the
mother made her toil light and happy by listening to the airy voices of
Violet and Peony. They kept talking to one another all the time, their
tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands. Except at
intervals, she could not distinctly hear what was said, but had merely
a sweet impression that they were in a most loving mood, and were
enjoying themselves highly, and that the business of making the
snow-image went prosperously on. Now and then, however, when Violet and
Peony happened to raise their voices, the words were as audible as if
they had been spoken in the very parlor where the mother sat. Oh how
delightfully those words echoed in her heart, even though they meant
nothing so very wise or wonderful, after all!

But you must know a mother listens with her heart much more than with
her ears; and thus she is often delighted with the trills of celestial
music, when other people can hear nothing of the kind.

"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet to her brother, who had gone to another
part of the garden, "bring me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from the
very farthest corner, where we have not been trampling. I want it to
shape our little snow-sister's bosom with. You know that part must be
quite pure, just as it came out of the sky!"

"Here it is, Violet!" answered Peony, in his bluff tone,--but a very
sweet tone, too,--as he came floundering through the half-trodden
drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O Violet, how
beau-ti-ful she begins to look!"

"Yes," said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly; "our snow-sister does
look very lovely. I did not quite know, Peony, that we could make such
a sweet little girl as this."

The mother, as she listened, thought how fit and delightful an incident
it would be, if fairies, or still better, if angel-children were to
come from paradise, and play invisibly with her own darlings, and help
them to make their snow-image, giving it the features of celestial
babyhood! Violet and Peony would not be aware of their immortal
playmates,--only they would see that the image grew very beautiful
while they worked at it, and would think that they themselves had done
it all.

"My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, if mortal children ever
did!" said the mother to herself; and then she smiled again at her own
motherly pride.

Nevertheless, the idea seized upon her ima